My Point of view : The winner of the Tablet war is...

Every other week, I'll be providing my point of view (P.O.V.) for what it worth on any specific topic related to technology. As you can now see, technology is my passion and I'm what you call a geek!

The reason why I love technology is not because of technical details or features. No, it's simply because I love what technology can do for us in our day-to-day lives when used appropriately. For instance, people don't realized that a smartphone today is much powerful than their bulky computer. Simply because, they are more practical than let's say a laptop. You can use them anywhere, anytime for almost anything. Checking email, browsing the web, playing games or even checking gas price and driving direction to the cheapest gas station in your neighborhood. Just think of what you want to do and thanks to developers "there's an apps for that".

My P.O.V. of the week:

Ipad 2 and FaceTime

29 months after the first Ipad was announced and introduced by Apple, FINALLY there is a serious (call it smart) competitor revealing it's champion in the tablet war! Kindle Fire the long-waited tablet from Amazon was unveiled this morning in New York city by Jeff Bezos himself.

Kindle Fire apps store

 Another tablet is entering an already crowed and ferocious marketplace. Indeed, almost every month now, a new tablet is introduced and every hardware manufacturer out there seems to want to jump in the bandwagon. HP is probably regretting to have made the call of launching theirs, the HP TouchPad. They killed it one month after its launch. Other Android tablets are just pilling up on retailers warehouses. Maybe Samsung is the only one (besides Apple) doing just right with their Galaxy Tab. Why is that? Why no one has ever been able to compete with Ipad until today?

I've spent 11 years of my life at Microsoft working for products you might have heard of like Xbox or Kinect. The reasons they are now successful is first of all because Microsoft doesn't like to lose. But this is a costly strategy that few can afford. Secondly and lastly because Microsoft understood that you do no want to create a me too product hence Kinect or Xbox Live (online game service introduced in 2003).

So my point is, if ultimately

1. you don't have one unique point that makes you different (we call it USP - Unique Sellling Proposition).
2. if you do not address or uncover any specific need on the market 
3. if you do not identify your audience well enough or have a large enough addressable market.

DON'T DO IT! Don't launch your product against the wall. You know what will happen right?

Amazon could have launched a tablet as early as late 2010 or early 2011 just to jump on the wagon and grab market share. But because they are smart(er) and want to optimize every single $ they spend, Amazon decided to wait until now to release the Kindle Fire. So if we go back to the three success criteria listed above. How does the Kindle Fire stands out ?

Kindle Fire from Amazon

1. Kindle Fire Unique Selling Proposition - $ 199 (Ipad and the Android tablets all start at $ 499) + Amazon distribution
2. Kindle Fire is addressing the needs of people who are looking for something in between their laptop (too big) and their smartphone (too small) to stay connected with their network and kill time while on the go. But, they do not want to pay too much if it's not...the Ipad.
3. Kindle Fire audience : all laptop users looking to upgrade or buy a new laptop + senior people but in search of a more practical (smaller, lighter and inexpensive) and easier to use device. Something always ready to go.

According to IDC a research and market intelligence firm, Ipad represent 68.3% share of the worldwide market. All the Android tablets combined (dozen of them) 26.8%. The Kindle Fire at $ 199 could well take all the sales of those Android tablets and also eat into the Ipad sales. Same time next year the market could well look like this : 

1. Ipad - 50% to 60%
2. Kindle Fire and other Kindle tablets down the road (3G/4G version or one with a larger capacity or screen) - 20% to 35% 
3. Others : all other Android tablets + Playbook - 15% to 20%

Android Logo

Of course, Google's acquisition of Motorola has yet to produce fruits. It may well be another major game changer! With all these new products and companies battling to earn your wallet, you should expect the market to level down towards the Kindle Fire price point. 

This is never a bad thing for consumers but probably not a good news for some players out there (RIM, HP, Samsung, Barnes & Nobles...). Next week Apple is going to unveil not only the Iphone 5 but their new operating system for the Ipad (and IOS devices including Ipod Touch and Iphone). Exciting things in perspective.

But ultimately the biggest winner is...you!!