While the concept of e-books dates back to at least the 1970's, the industry has only begun to develop since the late 1990's and is still in its infant years. As of today, there are only a handful of e-book readers available for consumers.

Early entrants include Sony, Jinke Electronics, iRex, and numerous other smaller companies, but none of the companies have yet to establish a solid reputation. In November 2007, Amazon.com entered the e-book reader market with the Kindle. Amazon originally priced the Kindle at $399 and it sold out within hours of its release. The device remained out-of-stock until April 21, 2008.

It reads the proprietary Kindle (AZW) format and like its closest competitors, Kindle uses an electronic paper display which consumes little energy and gives the user the illusion of reading o physical paper. The Kindle can act as a stand-alone device by downloading content over the Sprint EVDO network. This content delivery service is called Whispernet.

According to Je Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com, designers of the Kindle envisioned a device that would \get out of the way", a device by which readers would become engrossed in the words and forget the medium on which they are reading. Battery life, eye strain, device portability, and user interface were all tailored to deliver the best reading experience possible.

Download Amazon Kindle, White Paper

PDF format, 66KB, 12Pages.

Andrew Ascoli, Dan Cullina, Lea Kunesh, Chun-Che Peng, Shengbo Xu

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CONTENTS
1 Introduction 3
2 Six Forces Analysis of the E-book Industry 3
2.1 Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Rivalry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Supplier Bargaining Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4 Buyer Bargaining Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5 Substitutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6 Complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3 SWOT Analysis 6
3.1 Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2 Weaknesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3 Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4 Threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4 Strategy 8
4.1 Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2 Long Term Positioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3 Pricing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5 Conclusion 11

CONCLUSION
With the correct strategy, Amazon can achieve a dominant and stable position in the mature e-book market. In the short run, Amazon should focus on advertising to expand the market base by targeting commuters and travelers. It should also collaborate with newspapers to expand the supply of content other than e-books.

In the long run, Amazon should emphasize profuts in hardware, since the outlook for e-book retail sales is unpromising. The price of e-books is already at a competitive level, but Amazon should continually decrease the price of the Kindle to attract more price-sensitive customers. This will allow Amazon to be strongly positioned to maintain leadership in the developing e-book market.

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