When Will Amazon Release The Kindle 4?

This has been a big year for e-book readers – thanks mainly to Amazon’s efforts. The Kindle 2 was launched in February of 2009, which is an improved version of the first Kindle, originally released in November 2007.

A few short months later, Amazon launched the large format Kindle DX reader. This was targeted at readers of newspapers, magazines and academic textbooks – and it caused a bit of a stir.

The potential uses in the academic environment – from constantly updated texts to interactive textbooks – and not forgetting the possibility that academic institutions and bodies could save a good deal of money – attracted a lot of attention and speculation. As well as signing partnership agreements with a variety of universities and colleges, Amazon got a lot of free publicity from political bodies – for example, the New Democratic Leadership Council (of which Hillary Clinton is a member) and even Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California.

The reward for Amazon’s innovation – admittedly helped by a lot of buzz and free publicity – was that the Kindle, in a very short space of time, became Amazon’s best selling product – bar none. Right now, the Kindle enjoys a staggering 60% share of the U.S. e-book market and Amazon have very recently gone global with their Kindle International.

However, Amazon were actually a late entrant to the e-book reader arena. The first e-book reader, the Franklin Ebookman, was launched ten years ago in’99. Sony’s PRS reader also beat the original Kindle to market.

Amazon may not have been first to launch – but by combining clever marketing with technical innovation and addressing customer needs, Amazon has secured its current number one position. The vast choice of books available for the Kindle on Amazon’s website (360,000 titles at the last count and growing daily) and the wireless connectivity (with no monthly fee) were every bit as critical to the success of the Kindle as were the technical aspects of the device.

Having developed the market, Amazon now finds itself with plenty of competition looming. Microsoft, Sony, Barnes and Noble, Samsung, Apple, Palstic Logic – the list seems endless – all have their own readers due for launch or in the final throes of the develoment cycle.

Wireless connectivity, currently one of Amazon’s strong selling points, will become standard and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader over 1,000,000 titles to choose from. Sony’s new Daily Edition reader will allow users to download e-books on loan from participating lending libraries. There will most likely be some standard e-book format adopted in 2010, and this will allow let users lend e-books to family and friends or port them over to other readers should they so wish.

Currently many industry analysts are casting their eye over the new readers and trying to predict which of them will be the long awaited Kindle killer. Whilst the competition is impressive, Amazon has shown a lot of commercial awareness thus far, so don’t expect them to yield the number one slot without a fierce struggle. After the launch of the original Kindle it took less than eighteen months for Amazon to launch the hugely improved Kindle 2. The DX followed just a few months later. You can be sure that Amazon has plans for the future development of the Kindle. Could it be that the real Kindle killer will be the Kindle 4 and that we might see this in 2010?

Check out the Amazon Kindle ebook reader #1, and view the full range of Amazon Kindle accessories available.