Amazon's Tablet Strategy

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is officially on sale now. Amazon is taking pre-orders for delivery starting November 15th. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, also announced that customers who purchase the Kindle Fire will receive a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime, the $79 annual subscription service that provides free video streaming and free shipping for items purchased from Amazon.com.

The competition between Apple and Amazon will be fascinating to watch. The two companies compete in a number of areas, but they fundamentally approach things in a different way. Apple is a device maker (iPhone, iPod, iPad, Mac, etc.) that sells content (music, movies, TV shows, books, etc.) to promote its devices. Amazon sells content (books, movies, products, etc.) that also makes devices to deliver some of that content.

In fact, at the same time that he announced the debut of the Fire, Bezos also announced some new content deals with leading magazine publishers Conde Nast , Hearst and Meredith.