Amazon launches free Kindle software for PC
Filed under: Technology, Amazon.com, Inc.
There is a new product on the home page of Amazon.com (AMZN). PC users can now download a free version of Kindle software which allows Kindle users to synchronize the libraries on their Kindle e-readers with their PCs.
The move is a curious one for Amazon, which sells the Kindle for $259. Why give away any related software at all? Amazon has not said, but it is easy to guess.
Some consumer electronics research has shown that the Kindle and other e-readers are priced out of the market for many people. Much of the data from these surveys indicates that people may pay $50 or even $100 for an e-reader, but prices over $200 drive potential users away. Amazon may not be admitting it, but the company knows that the Kindle market is limited because of its price.
Free reader software taps into a customer base that may be in the millions. Amazon's Kindle store sells thousands of books, newspapers, and magazines. Some of these are expensive and probably very profitable; an e-subscription to The New York Times, for example, costs $13.99 a month.
Amazon may not be able to sell millions of Kindles, but by making its e-reader software available for free, it may sell hundreds of millions of e-books.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-13-2009 @ 7:58AM
Mike said...
I seriously doubt a competitor will try and beat Amazon in the e-book reader device market by using the open source Kindle software. Amazon would have access to any of the competitor modifications to the Kindle software. Amazon gains little by open sourcing the Kindle software if there isn't a value to the marketplace. So what is that value to the marketplace?
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