Amazon’s New Tablet Is a Prime Portalย
The tech industry never gets boring! Given Microsoft’s hardware announcements last week, Jeff Bezos thought it wise to unveil a gadget of his own yesterday, and it’s so Amazon!
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fire HD 10 tablet! Customers will pay at least $149.99 to upgrade their old Fire tablet, getting a bigger screen, a USB-C port, and faster running and charging speeds. It may be half the price of an Apple iPad, but it’s a classic Bezos booby-trap. Amazon and its cohort of stock market devotees are slapping an ad on the lock screen for advertising revenue, and upselling users into Prime video, music, apps, and other digital products. Make no mistake; the Fire HD 10 is intended to turn a profit. Itโs a true money-sucker!
Stock prices are held aloft by opinions, predictions, attitudes, beliefs, and back of the envelope calculations. The past is the past; investors are buying the future. When Amazon launched in 1994, the big Bezos bet was on a future of customer service. He wanted to combine customer “obsessiveness” with the ability to make snappy decisions, shaping a competitive advantage that could keep his business alive. The goal was, and is, to one-day reap all the potential profits created through customer loyalty.
As it unfolds, investors have been keen to buy that future. However, we can’t ignore the elephant in the room. Amazon can’t be customer-obsessed and profit-obsessed at the same time. It’s one or the other! Bezos promised investors that their patience would be rewarded with profit. To deliver on that promise, he’ll have to sacrifice his customer obsessiveness, his competitive advantage, his reputation! Then what?
The Amazon Fire HD 10 is already out.