Google-Sony Team Up to Fight Amazon Kindle - Will Sony Get the Edge?
The announcement made in March 2009 that there is a Google-Sony team up to fight Amazon Kindle has raised quite a few questions. While the Amazon Kindle has been stealing headlines and other means of getting attention from the Sony Reader, will this new alliance give the Sony Reader the competitive edge it is looking for? The announcement surely brought Sony back into the spotlight, something this is necessary to be a true competitor of Amazon. These E-book Readers have advantages over each other that must be considered when coming to a conclusion about whether the alliance will be good enough to make Sony a real competitor with Amazon.
Sony has more than twice as many titles available through its e-book store, a major plus for it. It also features an attractive touch screen and backlight. Amazon’s biggest draw is that it offers free wireless coverage through Sprint’s 3G network. There are multiple points that end up coming out at about a tie in terms of benefits of one over the other, like storage capacity, supported formats, size and weight. The Google-Sony team up to fight Amazon Kindle raises another question: the terms of the deal Sony and Google made allows Google to make similar deals with other companies, so why hasn’t Amazon struck a deal as well? Some speculate that the free Google aspect is not appealing to Amazon who hopes to sell $5 to $10 eBooks to Kindle users.
The Google-Sony team up to fight Amazon Kindle is actually good news to any e-book reader because since Google and Sony will be offering free e-books, Amazon will either be forced to reciprocate to keep business going or form an alliance with Google similar to what Sony did. It is clear that the Google-Sony deal was a smart move on Sony’s part because it really needed a way to one-up Amazon. Sony still has some improvements to make, like incorporating a wireless feature for downloading content more conveniently.
For now, many argue that the wireless features and lower price cost of the Amazon Kindle ($359 vs. $399) give it the advantage over the Sony Reader. Incorporating wireless features in combination with the Google-Sony team up to fight Amazon Kindle may just give Sony the edge it needs to become a true Amazon competitor. So many people are on the fence in this matter that an update like this could make all the difference.
