It’s not about tablet wars anymore and the past year has shown that you can’t treat the tablet market like the PC hardware one. From the hardware side Apple is the one who’s going to be profitable for the near future, and the tablet as a PC replacement will really take off once Windows 8 enters the fray.
Until then Amazon & Apple are going to be the ones making money through tablets. The one who should be really worried is Google, as there Android tablet strategy is falling apart. Looks like Microsoft & Amazon are the ones who’ll be making money from Android. Google really needs to leverage its Motorola deal and go for vertical integration.
Tablets are more like consumer appliances and that’s the way Amazon is treating the device. So, just like a brick & mortar retailer would rent our buy its shop floor, Amazon is using a tablet to setup its own shop and eliminate the middle man (PCs, browsers etc). Apple is the only one with a similar strategy, albeit across a wider range of devices that are technically more open to competitors (kindle app). Then again their primary revenue is from the hardware sales, while Amazon is all about selling you stuff.
This will of course change once the tablet market matures & saturates, but that’s a long way away. Apple is the one setting itself up for this future, while Amazon will be there come November.
