Amazon is on a roll today and announced several new Kindles that are sure to disrupt Google and Apple’s offerings. The biggest announcements were the Kindle Fire HD available in both a 7 inch and 8.9 inch version. Of course the 7 inch version is $199 as they need to compete with the Nexus 7, however, the 8.9 inch version is just $299 with the 32GB 4G LTE version for $499.
Jeff Bezos made sure to rub it in that the equivalent iPad spec-wise will run $729. Where companies like Apple make their money from hardware, Jeff was pretty clear with how Amazon plans on making money. During his talk towards the end, he explained Amazon’s philosophy when it comes to their tablets. One of the images that appeared behind him said, “We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices.”
At this point in the game, in order to complete in the tablet market, well, unless you’re Apple, you’ve really got to take a bit of hit in the profit department. Amazon understands that the money is in the ecosystem and not in the hardware itself. Google and Apple definitely have their work cut out for ’em, but they also have a great ecosystem of apps, movies, music, and much more.