eReaders and Tablets give Apple a run for its money
As witnessed by some accidental browsing on Borders, it looks like the mobile devices market is getting more dispersed.
Mobile devices, by the way, used to be cell phones, period. But that market has expanded greatly to include cell phones, laptops or netbooks, tablets and eBook Readers. All of that just twenty years ago was like science fiction. Amazing.
Anyway, if Android-based mobile phones (28% in sales vs. 21% of iPhones), then Android on tablet devices is a natural progression.
Now, it’s up to the classic hardware makers like Sony (among others) who are lagging behind to stay ahead of the game, because clearly this market is going to get noisy and fast. The interesting thing about Sony is that they were the first to come out with an eBook reader (I have seen these devices at Borders stores way before the Kindle was born) but they did not grab the market in the same way. When I speculate on this, I think of it this way: new internet players such as Amazon and Google have an edge because they are the companies people aspire to be like in this millennium age. I don’t know why, but they are definitely “cooler” than a company like Sony, which has been very savvy in many electronics in the 90s.
By the way, let’s not forget that eBook reader devices came about as a reaction to other kinds of mobile technologies. As a result, book publishers and newspapers are scrambling to innovate and sell through this new, more efficient channel. Technology often has its way of creating a net effect on other industries and causing massive change.
