Towards the end of the year, when the Amazon management team get together to consider the company’s performance in 2009, they will have good reason to feel content – but not smug. It’s been a great year for the internet retail giant – and much of the credit must go to the Amazon Kindle reader.

The Kindle 2 launched in February of 2009. It was generally viewed as a big step in the right direction. Amazon had clearly listened closely to customer feedback concerning the original Kindle, released in 2007. Wireless connectivity and the enormous collection of Kindle books remained and faster page changes, prolonged battery life and increased storage capacity were among the improvements which were introduced.

Best selling author, Stephen King wrote a special novella to mark the launch and the Kindle 2 rapidly became the “must have” gadget amid a blaze of publicity.

In June of 2009, just a few months later, Amazon released the Kindle DX. This had a large display and was intended to cater for readers of newspapers, magazines and academic textbooks. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, it was the staid world of academic publishing that helped to gain the DX a lot of publicity.

The academic community was quick to realise the potential benefits the Kindle offered. Not only would it be very much easier to update textbooks but interactive education – pop quizzes and tests for instance – would be possible. Academic bodies would not only save money as a result of using digital books, but they would be more environmentally friendly also – a key factor for such institutions who have both budgets and environmental targets to meet nowadays.

As well as establishing partnerships with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon benefited from a lot of publicity generated by political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – both of whom held forth on the educational benefits of e-book readers in general and the Amazon Kindle in particular.

However, as bright as things appeared for Amazon, there were indications that trouble was looming. Other manufacturers, having seen Amazon develop the e-book reader market, were now becoming aware of the enormous potential of this nascent sector. An impressive list of competitors, including the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Sony and Barnes and Noble, wanted their share – and they all had their own readers in development.

It’s a compliment to Amazon – albeit a backhanded one that virtually every ebook reader in development which shows the slightest promise is immediately dubbed the “Kindle Killer”. The problem is that, at this time, in spite of all the development work by the competition, Amazon is still the only game in town. Sony’s Daily Edition reader and the Nook from Barnes and Noble have both had their release dates put back. In fact, it looks increasingly likely that the most probable source of the long awaited Kindle Killer would be Amazon itself. The Kindle 4 looks like the most likely contender. Might we expect to see it in the next twelve months?

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