Amazon's Plan to Defeat the iPad

For once, a sensible story, although I am really tired of the "XYZ-killer" type of story. XYZ has been, respectively, the iPod, the iPhone and now the iPad. In none of these categories has a "killer" ever emerged. Even in the case of the iPhone and the panoply of Android phones, the landscape is vigorous competition, not the extinction of the iPhone, no matter how much Paul and others may hope for that. It will probably go the same way with tablets. However, the non-Apple tablet makers have to figure out two things: (1) the largest part of the tablet market is for simplified computing, not Windows crammed onto a touch screen (no one WANTS Excel with VBA on a tablet, that's what laptops are for), (2) tablets that are primarily media consumption devices need a full media infrastructure. On the second point, Paul nails it. Amazon is the -only- company that has a chance of matching Apple. I think the experience will never be as smooth or polished as the Apple setup, but it is a plausible competitor. "Apple's ecosystem still seems tethered to Itunes and pairing devices to copy content to a hard drive over a cable." Changing that is overdue and that is what iOS and iCloud are about. Apple is again "burning the boats". SJ once declared the Mac alive and well as the "hub of your digital lifestyle" and that was a key piece of the Mac's comeback. At this point, by creating iCloud, the Mac (or PC) is no longer the central piece, but just another device in cloud oriented connectivity that needs to stand on its own merits. Microsoft could learn something from this. Apple is risking its most famous product because the company sees the future; Microsoft is still tethered to "Windows Everywhere", which no one wants. Two very different approaches and Apple has been winning this one for a decade. When will Redmond wake up and get with the program? Or will the sales guy just keep milking a 25 year old product?

The key thing that Apple has that everyone overlooks when making the Apple competitor statement is international presence. If Amazon wants to compete with Apple then their ecosystem needs to exist outside the US. Apple is the only sensible tablet choice outside the US. A virtual monopoly.