Kindle Fire: 95,000 Orders On Day One Tweet

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet is off to a solid start in terms of sales, according to one analyst firm.
eDataSource, which tracks consumer purchases, estimates that Amazon received about 95,000 pre-orders for Kindle in the first 24 hours after the product was unveiled Wednesday. That's a good bit lower than the 300,000 iPads that Apple sold in that gadget's first day on the market, but still respectable--particularly given that the Kindle Fire won't actually ship until Nov. 15.
The research firm builds its estimates by tracking email traffic, social media messages, and other electronic communications. The market watcher estimates that sales of the three other new Kindles that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced this week--the $79, non-touch Kindle Wi-Fi, the $99 Kindle Touch, and the $149 Kindle Touch 3G--totaled about 25,000.
"Despite the higher price point, the Kindle Fire outstripped sales of the other three new Kindle units combined," said eDataSource. Amazon officials did not return a call seeking comment on Kindle Fire sales. Bezos said he expects that sales of the new Kindles, including Fire, will be in the "millions."
Kindle Fire's impact on the tablet market won't be limited to Apple, as other players will also feel the heat generated by Amazon's decision to price the device at just $199. Best Buy this week revealed significant price cuts on RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook. The $699 64-GB model is now $499, the $599 32-GB model is now $399, and the 16-GB model, originally priced at $499, is now $299.
Kindle Fire is also cheaper than Barnes & Noble's $250 Nook Color, a fact that could lead the brick-and-mortar book seller to lower its price, according to some analysts.
Kindle Fire boasts some impressive specs for a device that comes in at under $200. The LCD screen displays 16 million colors in high-resolution, at 169 pixels per inch.
In-plane switching technology provides wide viewing angles. A dual-core processor, reportedly from Texas Instruments, provides quick responsiveness. The device weighs 14.6 ounces, making it possible for most people to hold in one hand.
Kindle Fire also provides out-of-the-box integration with Amazon subscription services for movies, TV shows, games and music. And it boasts a new browser called Silk that splits rendering tasks between the tablet and Amazon's big iron EC2 servers in the cloud. Amazon said the approach makes browsing faster than traditional approaches.
Noticeably absent, at least until the next version, is a microphone and camera. Kindle Fire is also currently available only with Wi-Fi connectivity. Amazon has not said whether it plans to release a follow-up model with 3G or 4G cellular reception.

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Amazon Kindle Fire No True iPad Rival Tweet

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced the long-awaited, heavily anticipated Kindle Fire Sept. 28 in New York. The slate, which uses a custom version of Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system, costs $199.99 and is expected to ship Nov. 15.

This may not surprise many people following the red-hot tablet market Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) created, but Piper Jaffray and other analysts don't believe the Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Kindle Fire will compete head-to-head with the iPad.

No one was really expecting Amazon to produce a premium consumer electronics device. The e-commerce giant's legacy of low-cost Kindle e-readers put wood behind that theory.

Sure, $199 is an aggressive enough price point to dupe pundits into thinking Amazon deigns to claw at the stout underbelly of Apple, which sells its 16GB iPad 2 for $499, but the product specs show otherwise.

There are major differences between the forthcoming Kindle Fire and Apple's freshest tablet, the iPad 2, that put the Kindle Fire at one end of the market and the iPad 2 at the top.

Apple's iPad 2 has a 9.7-inch screen. The Kindle Fire possesses a 7-inch display. The iPad 2 has front- and rear-facing cameras to enable photo and video shoots, as well as video chats.

The Kindle Fire has no cameras. iPad 2 has a microphone. The Kindle Fire doesn't. iPad 2 may be purchased in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models. The Kindle Fire comes with 8GB of internal storage, but offers all of the cloud storage a consumer can eat.

Where Apple reigns atop the high end of the tablet market, Amazon has targeted the low-hanging fruit grabbers, and plans to rely on its toy chest of Web-based music, movies, books and storage to woo consumers.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster noted, "With the Kindle Fire, we believe Amazon is attempting a unique tablet strategy by leveraging a superior cloud-based content delivery system tied with Prime to make money off of a device we believe will sell at a loss."

Of course, his caveat is that because Amazon is relying on a superior cloud-based content system to counter Apple's premium hardware and software choices, the Kindle Fire remains a step or two behind the iPad for the time being. This thinking puts the spotlight back on the rumor that Amazon will soon launch an improved Kindle Fire with a 10-inch screen.

Daring Fireball's John Gruber put it best:

"The iPad takes it on from the high end. It's the best possible device in that price range from the world's best maker of devices. The Kindle Fire takes it on from the low end. The iPad is a credible laptop replacement for many people-and with iCloud and another year or two of hardware improvements, that's going to be true for more and more people. The Kindle Fire is a laptop replacement for almost no one. It's a peripheral, not a second computer-and it's priced accordingly."

Munster remains comfortable with his previous estimate that Amazon will sell 2.5 million Kindle Fires this quarter to close out the year.

Interestingly, Munster noted that his conservative sales estimate is based on Amazon's history with Kindle e-reader shortages that he believes will extend to the Kindle Fire. "If supply were not an issue, we believe Amazon could sell closer to 4 million Kindle Fires in the holiday quarter," he said.

Munster expects the Fire to lead the pack of Android tablets that will take share from the iPad in 2012. He expects the iPad to go from its current 90 percent market share to 60 percent in 2012 as the Kindle Fire and other popular Android slates emerge to entice consumers.

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Is Amazon trying to buy WebOS from HP? Tweet

Who will save what’s left of Palm from HP’s bumbling? It could be Amazon, as the online retailing giant is in serious negotiations to snap up Palm from HP, VentureBeat has learned.
A well-placed source tells us that HP is currently looking to rid itself of Palm as soon as possible, and that Amazon is the closest to finalizing the deal, among a handful of contenders.
Indeed, after yesterday’s announcement of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, no other company seems as fitting a home for Palm and its webOS software. It’s worth noting that former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, who now holds a vague “product innovation” role at HP’s Personal Services Group, joined Amazon’s board late last year.
When asked for comment, an HP spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation. We’re still waiting to hear back from an Amazon representative.
The Kindle Fire is powered by Android, but it’s been heavily customized by Amazon to the point where you can barely tell. By purchasing the remnants of Palm, Amazon would have free rein to redesign webOS to its own liking, and it would be able to further differentiate its Kindle devices from the slew of Android tablets in the market.
And even though HP has given up entirely on its webOS hardware business after the TouchPad tablet failed spectacularly, there’s still plenty of potential for webOS to power a successful device. Palm’s mobile software was praised for its slick multi-tasking capabilities, which could allow future Kindle Fire tablets to juggle games, movies and media with more finesse than Android.
It also appears that HP has been eyeing Amazon for some time as a potential webOS partner. In an interview with This is my next in July, Rubinstein revealed quite a bit about having Amazon use webOS in its future tablets:
So, we’d like a partner that would allow us to expand the webOS ecosystem… There’s a variety of different sets of a characteristics to qualify as a good partner. I would say Amazon would certainly make a great partner, because they have a lot of characteristics that would help them expand the webOS ecosystem. As to whether there’s been discussions or not… that’s obviously not something I’m going to comment about.
HP paid $1.2 billion for Palm in 2010, but Amazon will end up spending a fraction of that if the deal goes through. Given just how badly the TouchPad failed, HP will likely offer what’s left of Palm at a major discount, especially since Amazon woudn’t be interested in resuscitating now extinct webOS hardware.
Personally, I’ve never had much faith in HP’s ability to effectively manage Palm and webOS. Amazon, with its commitment to long-term planning and innovative consumer devices, seems like a much better fit. And in a way, it seems fitting for the company that released the first widely-available $200 tablet to snap up the company that made PDAs, the precursor to the smartphone, a phenomenon.

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