The Not-yet-released Kindle tablet is Already a Failure
That’s what Digitimes is reporting this morning. They have inside sources that have claimed that Amazon will have trouble getting people to buy its tablet.
The sources also pointed out that Amazon may run a risk by releasing a 7-inch tablet when 10-inch models have mostly outperformed 7-inch competition over the past six months. In addition, the price cut strategy that Amazon uses has been gradually impaired by other low-priced models, such as the US$249 Nook Color and the US$199 IdeaPad A1, they said. It remains to be seen whether Amazon can replicate its e-book reader success in the tablet market, they said.
Now, I prefer to ignore rumors (when I’m not talking about how ridiculous they are), but today’s rumor is something else.
Back before the Kindle Tablet was shown to TechCrunch, it had been repeatedly hailed as a guaranteed success, with reports that Amazon would ship 700k units a month and/or 1 million tablets in Q4 (yes, I know the numbers don’t add up). Now that there is some credible evidence that it exists, all of a sudden the Kindle tablet is going to fail.
I, for one, am deeply amused that a tablet can be both a success and a failure not only before it ships but also long before it has been seen in public. Seriously, the AmTab has been seen by exactly one tech blogger.
My point, folks, is that nothing said about the AmTab – aside from the one report from TechCrunch – can be relied upon. There is a good of a chance that whoever first reported on the rumor was simply blowing smoke. Just think about all the supposed release dates (August, September, October, next year). How many of those have come true?
Comments
Julien September 22, 2011 um 11:25 am
So TRUE!
charlie dulin September 22, 2011 um 1:38 pm
yep its ridiculous speculation by folks needing to fill their workday with something
Peter September 23, 2011 um 12:16 am
Amazon is one of the most heavily traded (thus pumped and dumped) stocks by big wall street players.
I think the majority of what you see out there is hype put out there by promoters with skin in the game, aimed at investors more than anyone else. The rest is there because writers get paid by the click- mention Amazon somewhere and you get many more clicks.
And this appears to all be orchestrated- for months it’s been almost unheard of to see anything but excessive, often irrational, praise for Amazon by major media outlets and websites. Then this recent report about Amazon’s factory worker abuse , which actually started with a small town paper almost a week ago and went nowhere, suddenly blew up two days ago.
One well known financial site even linked to the report, then de-activated the link, then posted it back up again. Very suspicious behavior.
Apparently, word came down from some media mogul on high somewhere that it’s okay- you can bash Amazon now. Before it was verboten.
Anyways, thank you Nate for not being part of all the games being played.