Amazon fights iPad with Fire

Amazon called its eReader "Kindle" to kindle interest.

When the Kindle appeared, in 2007, there was no tablet market. The iPad was still a glimmer in Steve Jobs' eye.

Now, it is logical for Amazon to call its colour tablet Fire - and it seems that the plan was always just that; to play into the "kindling for the fire" concept.

It seems so obvious. Cue all those "playing with fire" headlines.

Why is the Fire likely to succeed where so many other models in this market have failed?

As analyst Horace Dediu so clearly put it: "Apple positions tablets as the evolution of computing. Amazon positions tablets as the evolution of media."

Both Apple and Amazon have something all other tablet makers don't - credit card numbers.

As I wrote about iTunes' Ping music service, another under-reported Apple failure that sank below the waves without much fuss, its key difference from other social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, was that it had customers, not users. What's the difference?

"Customers give you their credit card number," said one innovative website founder.

In the past year Amazon has clearly been getting ready for the Fire, launching its own app store and vetting Android apps for malware (something Google itself didn't do with enough diligence until a high percentage of apps were shown to be stealing user info).

Amazon also began offering a music-download service (as well as a cloud-based storage "locker"), then video streaming using an unlimited model not dissimilar to that of Netflix, though with a less attractive listing of shows.

This streaming service was cleverly tied to another Amazon initiative called Prime, which, for R620 a year, offered free two-day shipping in the US for products bought from the 15-year-old online merchant. Notice the hooks back into Amazon's key business: selling you stuff.

This is why Amazon is more likely to succeed than all its tablet competitors, who make hardware just as well but somehow can't make them as cheap or attractive as an iPad. HP canned its TouchPad completely just a month after it launched, and BlackBerry has sold only 200000 of its PlayBook, which is still mired in a lack of apps and a confused strategy. The other Android-running tablets from Samsung, Motorola, HTC, Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba and others simply haven't been able to dislodge the iPad. It sold 68% of the tablets shipped in the second quarter, according to researchers IDC, and has all the top-of-mind share.

Remember that Apple sells you a cheapish tablet (prices start at $500 in the US and R4400 in South Africa) so it can sell you songs and video - much like its iPhone, the newest version of which launches tomorrow.

Amazon offers you a cheap eReader (the Kindle at R1100, to sell you books at roughly R78 each. Now the Fire - which at R1560 is 40% of the cost of the cheapest iPad - aims to sell you music, videos and the new wonder child in the digital economy: apps.

Unlike all other tablet manufacturers, Amazon has a media store behind it. It also has your credit card number and that handy OneClick payment mechanism that is so useful that even Apple licences it.

The iPad, Kindle - and now Kindle Fire - have proved one thing: inexpensive sells.

The newest eReader, called the Kindle Touch, is also cheaper, and has an e-ink touchscreen and no more keyboard (R780 with WiFi or R1170 with 3G). A more basic touchscreen model is amazingly cheap at R620.

Will I get a new Kindle Fire and a Touch? Need you even ask?

Shapshak is the editor of Stuff magazine