14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that even Amazon is not immune to the tablet fever, having supposedly decided to release what it calls the Hollywood 10-inch color e-reader, which will probably have all, or at least most, traits expected of a slate, plus a price possibly lower than what tablets go for nowadays.
Amazon has already benefited much from the making and selling of the Kindle e-reader, as it not only sold many of those electronics but also a large number of e-books.
Now, the same outfit feels it can use similar tactics to drive upwards its sales of music and films.
More specifically, the outfit is planning a 10-inch color e-reader whose display will have full color support.
It is very possible that this product, called Hollywood, will resemble the Nook Color from Barnes & Noble, in that it will be a tablet in all but name.
There is no real information about the tablet, so one can only speculate on what operating system will be employed and what hardware.
The price is suggested to be around the $399 mark, hinting at fairly good specs, and it is quite possible that Amazon will grant free access to its movie service, at least for a while.
"Color e-book readers in our opinion will take the majority of the tablet market share beneath the iPad because of price and content advantages,” the analysts with Detwiler Fenton believe.
“The remaining niche of tablets (perhaps 5MM-10MM total units) will be fought over by a growing number of vendors including the Chinese OEMs offering $300 wholesale costs to the carriers. This would appear to put further pressure on premium priced tablet vendors Motorola and RIM, each of whom we expect will only sell somewhere in the 1MM unit range in 2011."
Amazon is also set to unleash smaller Kindle color e-readers during the holiday season.