Sir,

Relatively closed systems have little chance of success in theory. In practice, they may succeed as in the case of Microsoft and its operating system.

With Kindle, the proposition is different. The concept may
be unique at this point in time but it is easily imitable. It is just a matter of time before someone puts up more content and make that available on a device that may not be as expensive as Kindle.

If Amazon wants to pre-empt such imitation, it may need to move in a manner as to check-mate competition. A few possible dimensions are:

1. Content: Why should one be forced to buy an entire book? As an example, suppose a customer is interested only in segmentation or pricing (whatever might be the reasons.) Why should such a customer have to pay for and look at a book on marketing? The ability to deliver a part of a product may be a powerful differentiator. The same principle would apply to music. A customer might want to download one song and not an entire album. Shouldn't the power of technology be used to achieve such a degree of customization?

2. Some of the content could even be provided without the customer having to pay for it. Headlines of the day or a particular column that a customer is interested in would be examples.

3. The pricing of the product also raises a few questions. For another $300+, one might be tempted to buy a notebook. The trade-off between functionality (one assumes that Kindle can only link up with Amazon) and price is suspect. If initial enthusiasm is not sustained and the organization is forced to lower the price (on the lines of Apple), technology enthusiasts might feel cheated. An aggressive pricing (that again has the effect of creating barriers to possible new entrants) might be a better strategy.

4. In summary, there appears to be a strong case for Amazon to make Kindle as open a system as possible. This might be the closest to the concept of the Blue Ocean of Prof. Kim.

Warm Regards

Sir,

Thank you for the interesting insight into open systems. There seems to be a growing discussion in regards to harnessing the innovation that comes with collaboration. Examples that come to mind include the Mozilla Firefox browser, Sun Microsystem's gamble into open-source, and Facebook applications. Although it is true that these are mostly software based, they do emphasize end-user customization.

In addition to the excellent comments put forth by B V Krishnamurthy, I would have to agree that the concept is indeed 'imitable'. I could foresee devices similar to Pocket PC's and iPhones that may render the Kindle useless (if the e-ink display is the main selling point). There have been confirmed reports that color e-ink screens are in the product pipeline.

One potential imitator I see to the Kindle are the wireless carriers that are beginning to enter into the provision of media content (Verizon with VCast audio for example). It seems that the media content providers, (publishers, news media providers) are looking for a way to distribute content most efficiently. The discussion then becomes to what degree openness can be afforded without diluting the actual product offering.

Perhaps Amazon could become a media aggregation hub for all types of devices and all types of media.

Warm Regards.

Additionally, I am curious as to what the 'Blue Ocean' metaphor alludes to. Thank you.

I have never used Kindle but over the Black Friday period was quite tempted to buy one. I use computers almost all day. To work during the day and later to play (which is basically reading more trade related stuff). I think Kindle will be much easier on the eyes. But we are not debating if Kindle is a good product or not.

Should it be open or not is the question. And I think Amazon's idea about keeping it closed is great for the time being. They are going to build a monopoly of sorts by having a wonderful delivery and consumption platform. This will ensure better profits right now. And when 'openess' becomes more profitable by attracting more content/consumers/channels etc, they will be in a prime position to take advantage of that.

From a business standpoint, they are better off keeping this platform closed until is matures until they can gauge where the competition is headed. Sony's eReader is DOA and at this point Kindle is trying to provide a bundled offering to re-kindle the eReader market before turning it into a full fledged inferno.

Best,
Don

A couple of thoughts.

When discussing equipment such as the Kindle I like to see them not as e-books, which by their very name restricts their use, but as personal media carriers (PMC) or personal document carriers (PDC) since they can carry so many types of media, not only the ones you purchase. The use as PMC or PDC would require the user to be able to transfer files to and from, quickly and at their discretion, not through someone as with the Kindle.

Regarding the price, if the buyer is a moderate consumer of newspapers and weekly magazines specially, the savings obtained by buying electronic versions can pay for the equipment in a year or less and the user receive the added benefits of the electronic versions. The big question will be if the user modifies his habits to use this new medium and this depends on how user friendly it is.

The only way to preempt some company from locking the market for electronic print media would be for the industry to agree or choose a common standard for delivery and display of media, and that common standard should have DRM capabilities built-in in case the seller wants to use it and encourage the manufacture and purchase of equipment capable of displaying it by offering reduced pricing on electronic versions. If the equipment is user friendly and enough media companies join in and offer products, the market will grow, just as it did in the case of the music CD which used this model but with out DRM.

Dear Mr Park,

You can see more about Blue Ocean strategy either in Wikipedia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy or Blue Ocean website at http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/

Warm Regards
Raj

Sir,

I couldn’t agree more with your message “Open the Kindle”. I would complement it by saying:“…and offer free content”.

Unlike in the music industry, where content is mostly protected by copyrights, the literature (and to some extent the press) sphere offers lots free, creative commons, high-quality content of great reading value – for the simple reason that book fall into the public domain 70 years or so after their author’s death.

Thus, e-paper retailers and hardware manufacturers do not have to rely solely on paid content delivered through closed, DRM-protected platforms, to make a living.

As a consumer and e-paper enthusiast, I have turned to a service offering free, high-quality (both in terms of content and formatting) ebooks: www.feedbooks.com

On Feedbooks, I can download post and share ebooks, as well as create my own custom newspaper from my favourite RSS feeds. Content downloaded on Feedbooks is compatible with any epaper terminal; output for the Kindle (Mobipocket format) should be added soon.

Personally, I do not think Kindle will be able to maintain itself as closed system and succeed, if only because the book business is not the music business.

We can also draw an interesting comparison and lesson from iTunes: although they have sold over 6 billion songs so far (and 120 million iPods) and own about an 80% share of “legal” digital music, the digital music market is far bigger OUTSIDE such closed, DRM-protected environments.

Even though those open, no-DRM environments are not legal (yet), the lesson learned here is that thanks to the digital revolution, the balance of power has shifted away from large, closed publishers or service providers towards consumers. Who demand open, mostly free platform, forcing companies to rethink their traditional business models.

Regards,

Jerome Archambeaud

While the four indicators of an "open strategy" described in this article are valuable, they alone don't predict the success or failure of a closed or open approach to product innovation. If a closed approach delivers sufficient value and benefit while solving a difficult problem for the customer, then thwarting openness may well be the best strategy. Also, with a closed environment comes greater potential for creating a simple, elegant (easy-to-use) answer to the customer problem. The iPod/iTunes example of ease-of-use is probably still the best. With this combination of Apple products and technologies, the customer gets a virtually seamless experience of browsing, shopping, purchasing, collecting, managing, and (ultimately) listening to his growing array of music (and watching videos and pictures and maintaining contacts) in a very simple environment. The simplicity delivered through this experience more than makes up for the other many weaknesses of the closed environment. Ultimately, the customers and market decides if a closed approach is delivering sufficient value to overcome the weaknesses of the closed environment.

Whether or not Amazon will elegantly solve a sufficiently difficult problem for the consumer with its Kindle eBook in order to justify its closed approach is yet-to-be-seen. Will a preponderance of readers (those who may at least make up an early adopter phase) see the advantages of an electronic book that is browse-able, (somewhat) interactive and easily updated with new titles as superior to the current paradigm (paper books)? Or will this market prefer to wait for a product that is open (as a platform) to a variety of update-able content, media, and interactive applications from a broader array of market participants. In sum, this will be an interesting market to watch as, either way, Amazon is helping push a new segment of internet computing (literally) into the hands of consumers.

David - I'm not sure in what sense the Kindle device is closed. I think you have your facts wrong. Yes, e-books that Amazon sells to Kindle users can only be read on the Kindle. That is a bit closed but at the behest of publishers who favor DRM, of course.

The Kindle itself is actually open, far more open even than the iPod. Anyone can use free software (Mobipocket Creator) to publish their own kindle-compatible works, either protected by DRM or not. A publisher could start their own online store selling Kindle-compatible works and Kindle users could sue the included free Internet access to purchase and download the works.

Kindle can also read any text document while Microsoft Word, PDF and HTML files can be converted either using the same free software or by emailing them to Amazon. Finally, Amazon has an open publishing platform for Kindle. Anyone can upload a work, set their own price and be included in the Kindle store. Amazon pays the author 35% of that price on each sale.

Memo to Amazon.com: Open the Kindle
Posted by David Weinberger on November 26, 2007 1:20 PM
David
If there is any one who can give me benefit in cash and that is what eBay and Amazon has done I have nothing but praise. Amazon gives me value for money. In fact many used magazines, books; DVDs PCs are readily available in the net these days
I thank you

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania

Kindle gives me hopes that we might soon develop a USB Flash Drive Editor for use by those with marginal Internet access. We're calling ours "Includer". It's like an e-book reader but it's focused on allowing people offline to read and write emails and so participate in online community. This is important for our Minciu Sodas laboratory's participants in Africa who often walk five miles and pay $1 an hour at an Internet cafe to use a slow connection. We would very much like to work with or for Amazon's Kindle team to develop a device for use by the billion or so people with marginal Internet access. Andrius Kulikauskas, ms@ms.lt, http://www.includer.org

Re Blue Ocean Strategy - not available as a Kindle book.