There was so much hype leading up to the Fire Phone that many people likely felt a little underwhelmed when it was finally unveiled in all its glory. There were a couple really cool features of the device but most of everything else was met without much fanfare. Perhaps it was the price, the exclusivity of the Fire Phone, or the lack of high powered specs that people were expecting, maybe a combination of the three. Whatever the case the Fire Phone was not the big seller that Amazon was probably hoping it would be. This doesn’t seem to bother Jeff Bezos though. The companies CEO, who in an interview with the CEO of Business Insider states that they will continue their path with the Fire Phone with future iterations of the device.
This may seem like a bad idea, and being a consumer on the outside looking in it’s easy to see why people would view it that way. According to Bezos, they don’t care that the Fire Phone ended up for lack of a better description, a failure (even though he wouldn’t classify their first device with that term), as they see the venture with entering the smartphone market as a calculated risk rather than a bomb. Bezos seems highly optimistic about the future of the next Fire Phone, and appears to view their first attempt at such a device as a learning experience of all things, mentioning past businesses and services that Amazon had offered before, prior to the coming of Amazon which those other non-successful ventures ultimately paved the way for.
To Bezos, the Fire Phone is just another stepping stone to something greater, something bigger. And even though this version of the device didn’t reach epic level status in sales or success, he has every belief that what they work towards for the future will be even better than the first attempt. In some ways, we’re inclined to agree. In business, you have to take risks, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward should things actually become successful. Sometimes ideas don’t work out, and that’s just part of doing business according to Bezos. In no exact words, he basically states that he’d rather take a big risk on something like the Fire Phone than become stagnant and refuse to innovate in what the company offers. Here’s to whatever Amazon has planned for the Fire Phone’s future. What do you think about the Fire Phone in its current state? Would you be open to seeing what Amazon had to offer for their next device model?