Summary
Apple is the company best know for designing superior human machine interfaces and intuitive graphical user interfaces. Apple successfully introduced an application delivery platform and a phone (iPhone, ipod Touch) that pundits were skeptical about. Experts argued about use of a touch screen keyboard for phone number or SMS or IM entry - but Apple came out with an excellent touch screen text entry that has taken over the market place. If any one can take on the e-reader market - it is Apple.
Analysis
Amazon's Kindle is the undisputed king of e-reader market place due to the following reasons :
- Content - Amazon has a large base of content and agreements in place with publishers to distribute
- Any where Wireless Delivery mechanism: agreements with various 3G service providers in place to provide *free* high speed download of books and other published content.
- Backup for downloaded content in case one loses Kindle or content gets corrupted/ deleted.
No surprise that Kindle is the leading e-reader in marketplace today. However, Amazon's Kindle is weak on the user interface side - with lots of buttons and mechanism to traverse the books / other published material and lack of touch screen.
User interface is a strength area for Apple and this is where Kindle is going to lose market share once Apple hits the market with their device that will be sleek, cool looking and capable of doing much more.
With iPhone, Apple has proven its capacity to create service level agreements (SLAs) with telephony service providers and its AppStore is a proof of content / application distribution channel. Apple may come out with a device that has iPhone embedded and 3G data network enabled for wireless downloads.
Sony's e-readers and InterRead's COOL-ER have touch screen but lack wireless and depend on PC or Mac to download content from various e-book stores. COOL-ER has sleek looks and will appeal to younger audience. InterRead doesn't have the distribution channels that Sony, Amazon & Apple are strong on - Sony Style stores, Apple Stores, Amazon online and other retailers.
Apple's marketing and distribution channels combined with their cool looking device and superior user interface is going to be a winner in the e-reader market. Just look at some of Apple's interface features on their existing devices (iPod touch, iPhone, MacBook) - zooming in using two fingers, auto detection of device orientation to realign page for reading, moving around the page (up & down) with one finger, select - cut & paste feature, magnifying glass feature while typing and out amongst others.
iLiad from IREX, in its current form, is not geared to compete with Apple technology or Amazon's Kindle. If their next generation rumored wireless access device (similar to Kindle) comes to market then they will be able to provide some competition . IREX still lacks in distribution channels in North America and is a relatively small player in Europe.
Apple has everything going for them - they already have a strong platform to launch the e-reader. Once they get around to increasing battery life for a backlit LCD display that will allow users to read documents & books in bright and low lights - there is no stopping them from taking over the e-Reader market and also making a large dent into netbook market place.
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
