Amazon 10-Inch Kindle Fire May be Delayed

amazon may hold off on announcing a 10-inch Kindle Fire at a press event next week, instead focusing on tablets that are smaller than Apple's iPad.

Although a 10-inch Kindle Fire has been expected since last year, All Things Digital reports that the tablet is “definitely not a done deal,” citing several anonymous sources. However, Amazon could still announce a version with an 8-inch or slightly larger screen, in addition to a revamped 7-inch Kindle Fire.

This isn't the first we've heard of a medium-sized Kindle Fire tablet. Last year, Digitimes reported that Amazon was preparing an 8.9-inch Kindle Fire, and last month, Staples US Retail President Demos Parneros said to expect five or six Amazon tablets, which could leave room for something in the 8-inch range.

I'll be a bit disappointed if Amazon doesn't announce a 10-inch Kindle Fire at its press event. Cheap 10-inch tablets are hard to come by unless you're willing to buy last year's hardware. If previousspeculation is accurate, a large Kindle Fire would likely be inexpensive, while also offering specs on par with the latest devices, such as a quad-core processor.

But if the device isn't ready, a delayed launch is for the best. After all, the original Kindle Fire suffered from buggy, sluggish software at launch, along with some hardware design quirks, which in turn resulted in lukewarm reviews. If Amazon plans to challenge the iPad head-on, it needs to take the time to get it right.

In the meantime, the company may feel that it can claim some new territory with a slightly smaller Kindle Fire. We've seen a few tablets with 8.9-inch screens over the last year or so, includingSamsung's Galaxy Tab 8.9 and LG's T-Mobile G-Slate, but none have proven particularly popular.

One other interesting tidbit from All Things Digital's report: Sources say to expect some sort of mobile broadband connectivity option for Amazon's new tablets, but how that will work is unclear. Amazon already sells e-readers with 3G connectivity, but doesn't allow Web browsing over mobile networks for newer models. Short of some radical new approach to wireless tablet data, we may Amazon go the traditional route and require users to sign up for data plans.

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Amazon e-book subscription? Publishers should join

• Once upon a time, you might tell your children, there were buildings called libraries. A resident of a city or town, you would explain, could walk into one and borrow books--for free!
• Libraries aren't likely to fade into history just yet, of course, but the possibility is more plausible given Amazon's discussions about offering an annual subscription plan for e-book access described in a Wall Street Journal report yesterday.
• Amazon's library option would be part of Amazon Prime, the gradually broadening subscription plan, Larry Dignan at CNET sister site ZDNet expects.
• As I see it, the move makes perfect sense for Amazon. Plenty of people would probably rather rent e-books through an all-you-can-eat plan rather than purchase copies they might well never read a second time. And with e-books, selling used copies isn't allowed, and lending is constrained if it's allowed at all, so the value of a book that's been read drops dramatically.
• But, of course, Amazon isn't the only party in the discussions. Publishers are a critical part of any such service, and that's where things get messy. Here's how I see the changes in the industry shaking out. (Amazon didn't immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.)

Digital disintermediation
Increasingly, digital technology is radically transforming the old ways of exchanging information--on paper, on CDs, on DVDs, on TV, in movie theaters. There are three reasons.

First, the underlying information now can be encoded in digital form. Second, digital data can be copied with trivial ease. Third, those copies can be distributed globally over the Internet with trivial ease.

Of course, that's just the mechanics that underlie the digital revolution. Higher-level factors keep the industries from transforming overnight: how do you build a business around digital distribution of media by getting customers to pay? Should data be wrapped with digital-rights management (DRM) encryption to curtail uncontrolled copying? Who finds, cultivates, edits, and pays the content creators that generate the actual product?

Gradually, though, a few companies such as Amazon, Netflix, Google, Spotify, Hulu, and Apple are settling those questions, for good or ill. Apple's iTunes has led the music industry into the digital age; Spotify is accelerating it with subscription plans; Netflix probably has the best chance of any company to bring movies along, too; Hulu is following suit with TV; and Amazon jump-started the e-book industry with its Kindle reader and apps. With Google Music, Google Books, and YouTube, Google is working the angles, too.

Do you see a trend here? Few of these companies are the ones actually in the business of generating the content. The exception is Hulu, whose investors include NBCUniversal, News Corp., and Walt Disney, which run the NBC, Fox, and ABC TV businesses, respectively. Going the other direction, Google and Netflix have dabbled with the idea of coming up with their own premium content, but not with much effect so far.

Here's the thing, though. The Internet is famously good at disintermediation--a useful bit of jargon that means taking away the middleman. In the book business, the middlemen are bookstores. They're essential for getting the product into the hands of customers, because distribution of physical books is hard--trucks, inventory, paying the rent for a spot in the mall.

With the Internet and digital books, distribution is vastly easier, of course. There's no inventory problem. People can buy a sequel on impulse moments after finishing a can't-put-it-down page-turner at 3 a.m. The arrival of e-book apps for smartphones and tablets has reduced the difficulties of providing people something besides a PC as a vessel for the book. People will still browse bookstores of some sort, physical or online, to see what strikes their fancy, but now that process comes with the ability to even read an excerpt.

Go direct?
So if it's so easy, why aren't book sellers supplying them directly to the buyers?

For one thing, they have a sales, marketing, and support staff geared toward selling wholesale to middlemen, not retail to the vast number of potential customers. Distribution may be easy, but getting people to buy stuff isn't, and publishers' don't have consumer relationships and brands the way Ford, Kraft, and Timex do.

For another, it's a classic innovator's dilemma: how much of a difficult transitional period can a publisher endure making a transition to direct sales while angering the bookstores that, while fading in importance, still are essential to today's revenue?

Last, customers don't just want to buy books from one publisher any more than they want to buy an MP3 and video player that only will play music from Sony Entertainment's music and video catalog. Middlemen can consolidate offerings from multiple suppliers--as indeed Hulu does in the TV business.

A look at the e-book business today shows how things are changing. Random House touts its e-book bestsellers, with links to six different online bookstores. Simon & Schuster (disclaimer: it, like CNET News, is a part of CBS) offers direct sales--but then requires a complicated installation process for readers to get their books onto tablets, phones, or Sony e-reader. HarperCollins lets people read some of the book online, then hands transactions off to retail bookstores. It's getting more direct, though, for example with its Bookperk site to drum up reader enthusiasm with promotions to buy physical books from the publisher.

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Amazon: We're testing a redesign

Can you remember a time when there wasn't an Amazon?

The site seems to have been around since pages took 30 minutes to load. And it's always seemed the same. Some blue, some orange, and as utilitarian as a dustpan and brush.

So how strange it would be if Amazon suddenly looked, well, 21st century. I cannot guarantee that this will happen, but the company has admitted to The Wall Street Journal that it is testing a redesign.

Oddly for a site that is spectacularly easy to use, this redesign is intended to make it even easier. What could this mean? You could just whisper at the screen and your wishes are granted within 12 seconds?

(Credit: John Falcone/CNET)

Well, just take a look at the before and after screenshots. There are fewer products, more white space, and therefore, dare one suggest, a dangerous increase in the site's level of sophistication. (Retailers always worry about being too sophisticated.)

Look how much larger the search box has become. But please remember, Amazon doesn't really want you to buy CDs and books. It wants you to buy all the more virtual, gadgety things. They're far less bother. Indeed, the concealment of the list of departments on the left of the page might suggest the site will personalize itself even more to your most modern needs.

This all may just have something to do with the promise of a new Amazon tablet, which might even be called--breathe deeply now--Kindle. This, its alleged iPad rival, may reportedly retail for as little as $250.

Not everyone is currently privileged to view the new design. An Amazon representative told the Journal: "We are continuing to roll out the new design to additional customers, but I can't speculate on when the new design will be live for everyone."

There will, no doubt, be those who will whine. That's what people do. But a good redesign makes you forget the old very, very quickly.

Online retail sites are beginning to discover that the principle of filling every last square inch of space with product--just as some department stores love to do--may not be the best way of maximizing your business.

Sometimes, people need to relax before they buy.

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Amazon tablet coming in November for $250?

Much ink has been spilled in the rumor mill about a coming Amazonian tablet, and now those rumors look to be confirmed. TechCrunch has apparently gotten some time with Amazon's forthcoming slate, and reports that it has a 7-inch, backlit color capacitive screen and is bereft of physical buttons. Word on the web is that the hardware is already good to go, and Amazon is making the last few software tweaks before it goes on sale this November. The tablet is running a heavily skinned version of Android that was developed without any help from the folks in Mountain View. It apparently has a Cover Flow-esque UI, and is deeply integrated with all of Amazon's services (Cloud Player, Instant Video Player, Appstore, and of course the Kindle app). Best of all, it will reportedly cost a scant $250 -- not quite TouchPad territory, but well underneath the iPad's $500 price. Let the next great tablet war begin.

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Amazon prepping a 7-inch tablet for October?

Amazon could have a 7-inch tablet ready for customers in a couple of months, according to a new report from DigiTimes.

Citing anonymous sources at component suppliers, DigiTimes said today that Amazon will start shipping a 7-inch tablet in October. The company will then follow that up with a 10.1-inch tablet that it will begin producing in the first quarter of 2012.

DigiTimes' report seems to fall in line with what the latest rumors on the possible Android-based Amazon tablet have been suggesting for months now. In July, for example, a few reports cropped up suggesting Amazon will either offer a device with a 9-inch display or deliver two tablets with 7- and 10-inch options. In either case, those tablets were expected to be made available later this year.

If and when Amazon offers up its first tablet, the device could be priced quite cheaply compared to some of its competitors. Earlier this month, industry analyst Tim Bajarin said that Amazon could sell its slate for as little as $249. At that price, Bajarin said, Amazon would likely lose some money on each device it sold--he pegged the shortfall at about $51--but the deal would help the company quickly attract customers looking for a device that isn't as expensive as some of its competitors, like the iPad 2, which starts at $499.

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