This isn't really surprising. Remember when Steve Jobs said that nobody would ever want to watch a video on a small screen, right before coming out with the iPod Video?
Companies are allowed to position themselves against the competition and then say something different later, nobody's holding them under oath.
I think Steve was mostly right the first time. I don't remember ever actually seeing somebody watch a video on an iPod until the iPhone/iPod Touch, and even then, it doesn't seem to happen very often. Personally, I find watching a movie or TV show on a ~3.5" screen pretty uncomfortable.
So, Amazon had a page that promoted E-Ink over LCD. Then they released an LCD tablet and removed the page.
I don't see the big deal, I think the pros/cons of E-Ink are pretty well understood by most techies anyway. Now that Amazon has a its own LCD table they dropped the page? Seems kinda pointless on their part anyway.
Don't really see the big deal.
Also wouldn't be surprised if as the release of the Fire approaches they released a slightly more nuanced version of that page. Something along the lines of, "Which Kindle is for you?".
While there is obviously some overlap, I don't really see E-ink and LCD devices as competing for the same space and/or substitutes for one another.
I don't think it's about them competing exactly. Amazon probably wants the Fire to be adopted over the Kindle, especially since the table market has been shown to be so hard to enter successfully (Apple was 95%? as of 2010?). I don't think pulling this page would really effect that anyway.
Of course, it's still better to sell a Kindle than nothing at all.
They probably would rather sell you a Fire than a Kindle, but they would be fools to try and kill off the Kindle. The fact that they just released two new Kindles in parallel with the Fire suggests they understand this.
They would certainly like to sell more video and music, but eBooks are probably a huge part of their revenue and profits.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 27.0 ms ] threadCompanies are allowed to position themselves against the competition and then say something different later, nobody's holding them under oath.
I don't see the big deal, I think the pros/cons of E-Ink are pretty well understood by most techies anyway. Now that Amazon has a its own LCD table they dropped the page? Seems kinda pointless on their part anyway.
While there is obviously some overlap, I don't really see E-ink and LCD devices as competing for the same space and/or substitutes for one another.
Of course, it's still better to sell a Kindle than nothing at all.
They would certainly like to sell more video and music, but eBooks are probably a huge part of their revenue and profits.