Kasper JadeThe move came as the online retailer and eBook reader pioneer was pressing its publisher partners to agree to long-term licensing deals that would guarantee Amazon Kindle owners would always be afforded the lowest possible price for content, in exchange for publishers seeing higher revenues from each sale, according to the New York Times.
But as fate would have it, Jobs — the so-called king of new media — would use his leverage, and that of the iTunes Store's distribution model, to persuade many book publishers to price their most popular content for the iPad inline with that offered for the Kindle.
As an added twist, those publishers — including Macmillan, Hachette Book Group and HarperCollins — agreed to price bestsellers between $12.99 and $14.99 for the iPad, then turned around and demanded the same structure from Amazon. This translated into a cost increase for Kindle bestsellers from their historical $9.99 fetching price, spurring a price war between the online retailer and book publishers.
As it stands, a good percentage of Amazon's e-publishing contracts still reportedly operate on a month-to-month cycle, as those publishers are constantly seeking more flexibility to market their content. Meanwhile, the retailer's discussions with newspapers and magazine are said to be more complicated.
According to the Times, this group of publishers now finds itself torn between the allure of offering more advance, full-color, and media rich content on the iPad with the prospect of losing existing subscribers to the Kindle's black-and-white E-Ink medium.
"[So], to avoid losing their current subscribers on the Kindle, some publishers are considering signing the new Amazon contract now and offering a free, limited application for their content on the iPad," the newspaper reported. "At a later date, when an Amazon product can display richer types of media, publishers could release a paid product that looks and works the same across multiple devices."
The move is said by one unnamed publishing executive to exhibit all the signs of an ensuing price war for digital print content that could extend for years on end.
Wesley Hilliard
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
William Gallagher
50 Comments
Steve covers his bases - again.
Kindle's current installed base won't matter if the iPad takes off. Apple will likely match the Kindle installed base in the first year IMHO and then after that the Kindle is a footnote.
That's ignoring porting the iBook store to existing iPod Touch and iPhones.
I agree with the analysis that there's likely no more than around 1.3M Kindles sold.
http://digitalbookworld.com/2010/how...lly-been-sold/
My money is on Apple. My wife has a Kindle. She likes all things Apple, like me, but was skeptical at the start. She LOVES her Kindle, and at first did not even consider the iPad. Over the last few weeks, she started leaning towards getting the WiFi version. Yesterday, she realized that she might as well wait for the 3G/WiFi version. BUT, she will try it out at the Apple Store first... maybe...
I suspect that once she gets her hands on it and loads the Kindle App on it for her Kindle books, the Kindle itself will be gathering dust.
The writing's on the wall . . .
One weakness of the iPad is that without the 3G data plan, the user is dependent on WiFi to download paid content, including books, magazines, etc. Not an issue if I am at home or work.
However, when I travel I would like to get this content, especially for airplane flights, etc. Also when traveling overseas, it would be convenient to download books, newspapers... something the Kindle can do.
Hopefully, Apple will be able to cut the same carrier deals that Amazon. Thus, I can have an iPad with 3G but no monthly fees and use it to download paid content. I am tired of monthly bills for all kinds of service like phone, internet, cable, wireless phone + data plan, magazines subscriptions, newspapers, etc... looks like it never ends.