2009 has been a huge year for e-book readers – mainly due to the efforts of Amazon. Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an improved and enhanced edition of the original Kindle which was launched in November 2007.

In June of 2009, Amazon followed up with the Kindle DX, which was a large format version of the Kindle 2. It was specifically targeted at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks – and it caused quite a commotion.

The potential for academic use – from interactive textbooks to constantly updated texts, and not forgetting the possibility for academic bodies to save a lot of money – attracted a lot of attention. As well as entering into agreements with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon got a lot of free publicity from political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and also Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his capacity as Governor of California.

Thanks to Amazon’s foresight and innovation – aided by all the free publicity – the Amazon Kindle reader has now become Amazon’s number one selling product. At the moment, the Kindle has an amazing 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market and has recently unveiled an international edition. The Kindle has now grown to be virtually synonymous with e-book readers.

It’s probably worth pointing out that Amazon were, in fact, a late entrant to the e-book reader market. The first e-book reader, the Franklin eBookman, debuted in 1999 – a decade ago. The Sony PRS reader was launched in 2007, before the launch of the first.

Amazon may been late to market – but by combining smart, technical innovation and an awareness of customer needs, Amazon has reached its current dominant position. The vast selection of titles available for the Kindle on Amazon’s website and the wireless connectivity (with no monthly fee) were every bit as key to the Kindle’s success as were the technical features of the reader.

However, now that Amazon has – almost single handedly – established the market, it seems that all the other consumer electronics manufacturers want their share. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Plastic Logic, Asus – the list goes on – all have their own devices ready for launch or in the final stages of development.

Wireless connectivity, presently one of Amazon’s powerful selling points, will become standard and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader more than 1,000,000 titles to choose from.Sony’s new Daily Edition reader will permit users to borrow books on loan from participating lending libraries. Meanwhile, there will probably be a standard e-book format agreed in 2010, which will allow users to lend e-books to friends and family or port them across to other readers if they want.

At the moment, a lot of industry insiders are checking out the line up of new readers and trying to predict which one is the Kindle Killer. However, Amazon has been very astute thus far and they won’t surrender their top position without a fight. It took them under eighteen months after the launch of the original Kindle to launch the hugely enhanced Kindle 2. The DX followed just a few months later. Amazon almost certainly has big plans for the further development of their Kindle family. Could it be that the Kindle killer will actually be the Kindle 4 and that we could see this sometime in the next twelve months?

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