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[Updated after the Kindle Fire launch event: I've noted what happened in italics. I've not made any other edits.]

Tomorrow Amazon holds a major launch event and will likely unveil its first tablet, according to Techcrunch named the Kindle Fire.

To date, everyone bar Apple has failed with tablet launches. If Amazon mimics Apple then its tablet will fail too. Apple has too many economies of scale, industrial design expertise and supplier relationships for a retail-centric company like Amazon to emulate. Especially, if the Amazon tablet has taken a fast route to market by using the same ODM hardware manufacturer as RIM .

To succeed, Amazon must, and I’m sure will, take a different approach. The success of the Kindle shows Amazon is prepared to think differently from others and to disrupt its own products — in the Kindle’s case to disrupt the cash cow of print book sales — in order to be innovative and seize early advantage in digital markets. If Amazon’s hardware is undifferentiated and virtually the same as RIM’s PlayBook then Amazon has to differentiate elsewhere with content, experience and business models. Otherwise it will suffer the same fate as RIM’s PlayBook.

Amazon cares little about the post-PC world, unlike Apple and Microsoft who are playing that different game. Instead, Amazon is driven by a post disc and post print world where all media will be digital.

Amazon will build a true media tablet. The first true media tablet. The Kindle tablet will focus on the future of all media — TV, movies, music, books, magazines — to enable Amazon to become the dominant digital media retailer. That is Amazon’s ambition.

On that basis, here are the areas to watch for in Amazon’s tablet product launch and what impact each item will have  on the market:

• The extent to which the Kindle tablet’s business model is content-subsidized. Few devices enjoy a lower up front price because of content subsidy. It’s hard to do. Games consoles are the obvious exception but even in that market history is awash with console failures. Nintendo’s 3DS is the most recent struggler. Outside of games almost all devices are priced without a content subsidy. Even Apple sees content revenues as icing rather than a key profit centre that would warrant a lower up front price for iPads or iPhones. Carriers too subsidise iPhones based on communication revenues, not media. Arguably, only Amazon’s own Kindle eReader has extended a content-led device sales model outside of the games market. If Amazon offers its tablet for a very low price, based on expectations of future content sales, then Amazon will successfully disrupt the market and enjoy very significant sales. If the price is tied to hardware costs, then the price will be less aggressive and Amazon’s tablet will compete at a similar price to rivals and consumers will judge it based on the overall product package.
  Update post Fire launch event: Price is just $199 which given the component quality (IPS color screen; dual core processor; same broad hardware as the much more expensive PlayBook etc.) looks to have been set based on expectation of future Amazon content sales.  Read the rest of this entry »

At the 2011 Hay book festival I didn’t see a single eReader or tablet in the hands of a visitor. Yet main festival sponsor The Telegraph — a UK quality newspaper — devoted most of their stand to marketing their tablet app, and both Amazon and Apple advertised their eBook initiatives. The person giving away the free books for Apple’s iBookstore — see the lanyards below — was adamant that Apple would be offering iBooks on the PC/Mac soon as a part of iTunes. We’ll see, probably tomorrow.

While eReaders may seem to call book festivals and their featured author signings into question, I suspect the opposite will be book festival’s future: live performance by authors will become even more important.

Already, live music is critical for most artists, more so than recorded music deals. Already, book festivals are a forum for general debate on moral, political and other intellectual issues by panelists that have not just published a new book. eBooks will accelerate this trend. Authors’ role as pundits and live performers will re-kindle the oral tradition alongside digital print.

Also, eBooks will make it easier for festival attendees to choose a talk to attend on the morning of an event, download that author’s book immediately, read part of it, and come to the talk later the same day better able to enjoy the discussion and ask insightful questions.

For their Hay advert, Amazon amended their normal Kindle slogan to, “Telegraph Hay Festival finds in 60 seconds.” Smart. See below. (*)

* But they’re going to have to fix the mobile coverage first: UK Kindles had no reception! I only managed to download a book by using an Android smartphone to create a portable WiFi hotspot on a different mobile network.

This post was originally published on my Forrester blog.

Today, Amazon have launched a new Kindle that they are marketing internationally. Prior Kindle models were limited to use in the US. Key details:

• Big promotion in the centre of the front page of Amazon sites in the UK, France, Germany and Japan.
• Only for sale on Amazon.com and priced in USD at $279 (i.e. a $20 mark-up over existing Kindle2). Promotions above have links to Amazon’s US site to buy.
• Books are also for sale only via Amazon.com and are also priced in USD (at least for now).
• This is the first Kindle that uses a GSM-standard mobile phone radio — rather than CDMA — for wireless downloading of books, sync of reading position with other Kindles and the iPhone Kindle app (i.e. to drive Amazon’s Whispersync consumer cloud service).
• Uses AT&T’s mobile network and AT&T’s global mobile roaming partners for Whispersync.
• When outside the US, Kindle owners pay an additional charge for each book downloaded, currently USD1.99 per download. I imagine this also includes downloading PDFs via the email to Kindle conversion process and downloading small items like blogs or newspapers.

I’m frankly astonished that Amazon is marketing the above product internationally so strongly. Instead, it looks like a great fit for US residents who want to own a Kindle that works both in the US and when they travel abroad. Or, Amazon could have chosen a much softer and lower key international promotion on their various global sites.

For European or Japanese residents there are multiple barriers to adoption and use of this Kindle, which will cause serious issues for Amazon’s famed customer service reputation: As everything is currently priced in dollars, consumers outside the US will likely hit additional credit card fees when they buy; import of the Kindle will likely incur significant customs charges; and the per download roaming fee will rapidly add up to a significant sum given it hits on every newspaper or book download.

So, why have Amazon chosen to market this product so significantly on their various non-US websites today, ahead of the launch of international Kindle stores priced in local currencies?

I suspect this indicates that Amazon has failed to secure the international mobile operator partners it needs to offer Whispersync without per use fees, and by making such a big deal of this launch internationally Amazon hopes this will put pressure back on those partners to come back to the table. But if so, then why has the Kindle iPhone app not also been launched on those countries’ Apple App Store’s for use on the iPhone? The iPhone version wouldn’t have those same data roaming costs when a consumer is in their home country of the UK, France etc. as iPhones are sold with inclusive mobile data. Other thoughts? Please comment below.