Amazon Eyeing Hardware Market?

It looks like Apple, Microsoft and Google aren't the only technology company making noise in the  hardware market. Bloomberg Businessweek tweeted the latest rumor in the hardware world. Following up on their recent Kindle, Kindle Fire and smartphone app, Amazon has decided to launch a line of TV set-top products that will stream Internet directly to consumers' TV sets. Similar to DVR, Amazon hopes to build upon their success of Amazon Instant Video so consumers can enjoy the benefit of receiving news breaking news on the internet directly to their TVs.

With Apple selling nearly 5 million TVs last year and Microsoft selling 77.2 million Xbox 360 units since their launch in 2005, Amazon feels threatened to the point where the Kindle or Kindle Fire doesn't seem like it is enough to keep them competitive. Amazon hopes to introduce a new side to their company and being involved in the hardware industry allows for further expansion as well as reintroduces Amazon Instant Video subscriptions. Their pricing strategies will most likely follow their previous history's footsteps - being low priced for high content.



So what does this mean for Amazon? How will Amazon be viewed once the TV set-top product line is launched? Well, we should expect Amazon to remain competitive with Apple, Google and Microsoft in the hardware industry. Now that they have officially become the most dominant force in Internet retail, what is stopping them from replicating the same results in hardware? Understandably, it will not be an easy goal considering Microsoft and Apple are known as the two giants in the hardware market, but Amazon will continue to offer consumers with reasonable prices and have the resources to produce an efficient DVR-like program.

Amazon seems to be addressing a need that has already been met. People would rather receive news on their big screens rather than their laptops. Imagine having great quality shows and movies on your laptop or desktop and being able to stream them with perfect quality on the big screen. Sounds pretty familiar doesn't it? Yes it does! Netflix will be directly competing with Amazon as they both offer virtually the same benefit. This is where things become tricky. Why would consumers switch from Netflix to Amazon? They seem to both share the same goals. Amazon has the capability of obtaining Netflix consumers as they are well established in the technology field, but it will not be an easy task. There will need to be some serious advertising and an underlying benefit consumers receive from their product that Netflix doesn't provide.

At the end of the day, we still do not know too much about Amazon's plans to enter the hardware market due to the fact that these are only rumors at this point, but if they were to establish themselves as a competitor, we should be in store for some serious technological battles as each company tries to out-design the other.


Posted by Liel Dardashtian



Article: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/amazon-preps-kindle-tv-set-top-box-148893