Amazon Kindles a Fire

People talk about Amazon’s new colour table, the Fire (just released in the US) as a possible iPad beater, but with it’s simple interface, friendly price (half an entry level iPad) and deep integration with Amazon’s e-commerce platform it has the potential to be something quite different.

You could describe it as a deeply functional interactive loyalty card.

The Fire is essentially a mobile  shop window into the world of Amazon, and its a big world; with Kindle ebooks, 100,000 films and TV episodes to buy, 10,000 films and TV shows to stream free as a Prime member, interactive Magazines and Android Apps.

When it ships, it’s loaded with a months free membership of Prime, Amazon’s US subscription service that offers free content and deliveries for US$79 per year.

For a consumer, the Kindle e-reader does books, and the Fire will do movies, glossy magazines, browsing andshopping.  Together they will cost less than an iPad, and arguably will deliver a better overall  experience as we have two specialist devices.

When Jeff Bezos says he thinks consumers will buy both of his devices, I think he might be right.

And they won’t just be buying a device, they’ll be paying to be a deeply loyal customer.