Amazon's Bezos confirms content pays for Kindle

That Amazon makes little or no money selling its Kindle e-readers has been a popular assumption for some time. But assumption no longer - company chief Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon is after content sales profits instead. The first Kindle was launched in April 2008 and cost $399 - £248 at today’s exchange rate - and follow- …

[lurker]

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[Malcolm 1]

Platform agnostic

I think that the Kindle's success can also be attributed to the wide platform support for the Kindle software. If Amazon decided to stop developing for iOS, Windows, Android etc in favour of their own hardware I suspect people would be less keen.

[pompurin]

Kindle DX

I bought a Kindle DX which is only available in the States. I can see why Amazon never bothered to market it here in the UK. I predominantly use it for sideloading PDFs which Amazon get no commission for. It's a shame because it's an excellent e-reader with a hefty 9" screen.

[ulf molin]

"Amazon, on the other hand, uses a unique DRM scheme, ensuring Kindle users can largely buy (DRM limited) books only from the one supplier. Apple does the same with its e-book shop."

Could someone please explain what this means?

[Oddb0d]

The author is implying that there is vendor lock-in with both companies because Kindle users generally buy books from Amazon & iBooks users from Apple's iBookstore, however this is only true as far as people are lazy and/or ignorant as noted by the author in the next paragraph.

One of Amazon's ebook formats (AZW) is the common MOBI file format but is normally protected with their proprietary DRM scheme. The other Kindle format (Topaz or TPZ) is unique to Amazon and uses a different encoding scheme but the same DRM as AZW. However all Kindle's can display unprotected MOBI files that can be purchased from ebook stores other than Amazon.

Apple does the same thing with the iBookstore i.e. they use a common ebook format (in this case ePub) and apply their FairPlay DRM to it. As with the Kindle, iBooks can read the unprotected base format which allows access to titles from other bookstores.