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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 »

This post was originally published on my Forrester blog.

Today Intel and Nokia merged their existing smartphone and mobile device operating systems (Moblin and Maemo respectively). I’ll be brief as I’m at the MWC event right now (see my tweets for latest analysis). The target devices range from smartphones — or mobile computers in Nokia’s current positioning — netbooks, tablets, in-car entertainment among others.

This is a bold play that places MeeGo into a competitive position with Android, iPhone OS, Google’s Chrome and even desktop software like Ubuntu (as well as the mushrooming moble-centric smartphone software like Palm’s WebOS, Samsung bada and Windows Phone).

Intel’s support will raise the ability of the new platform to attract device makers as well as the app developers that every smartphone and smart mobile platform desperately needs to be competitive.

They have lots in common: Both are Linux-based; both predominantly target mobile devices; both aim to deliver outstanding rich consumer Internet experiences; and both have been more talk than action to date. Nokia needs to shift step quickly from talking to walking and even better running or the high end market in Europe will be dominated by the same players as in North America and Nokia will have to pursue a winback strategy. It’s taken Nokia nearly five years since the first Maemo device shipped to launch the first phone, the N900, and that is not the complete product — as Nokia concede — impressive although it nevertheless is (read my first take on the N900 in this Forrester report).

The aims for this new initiative are lofty but execution must match these ideals with both quality and speed. MeeGo must not allow the desire to implement this software on a very wide range of devices — in-car entertainments; smartphones; netbooks; tablets etc. etc. — to distract them from gaining rapid traction in the mobile market.

Meanwhile, I fear the consortium has challenges with its positioning and naming strategy: MeeGo is an awkward name. Nokia is focused on bucking the market and insisting these devices are “mobile computers” — not smartphones — and is shifting its smartphone devices to go head to head with featurephones. I understand the reasoning. But to regain the mindshare that Nokia and MeeGo needs, names as well as positioning need to be perfect.

More thoughts later when the MWC dust has settled.