Kindle for Mac is now FREE to Download 189.0

The best marketing response for Amazon against Apple iPad
Amazon has done today exactly as I said in my January 29 post, Apple iPad Intrudes on Amazon Kindle e-Reader Space, one day after Apple launched its iPAd the best marketing response to Apple.

Today, at 4:08 pm Manila time, I received an email for the free software download of Kindle for MAC. That I promptly did!

› Click here for free download link to Amazon’s Kindle for Mac.

An educated guess, but, still, great fun to make a good guess!

Best marketing response. The response is logical because Kindle is the market leader in e-Reader space while iPad as conceptualized by Apple to be useful in other applications with reader function just one of them.

The timing is just right as Apple has just started to book pre-orders though Amazon could have done better by giving this FREE Kindle for Mac download earlier. First day Apple iPad reservations last week was reportedly for 120,000 units.

The Kindle is a superior product to the iPad for reading books because because of matte-finish, its e-ink technology compared to the iPad’s brighter LED that is better for reading comics and magazines, arguably.

Of course, Amazon has a bigger volume of books ready for download, 450,000.

Finally, it would be more expensive for Amazon to fight on price because it is the market leader and the discount will apply to the total sales volume.

Amazon’s quick reaction was to re-promote the Kindle for PC. The Kindle for Mac is a more relevant response that is practically cost-free.

Apple constraints. Apple will have to plan against internal cannibalization by iPad to the higher-end MacBook and the popularly-priced iPod and iPhone and would not be too flexible in price strategy because of such fear. Apple will also have to convince its customers – I am one of them – to lug around three instead of two Apple appliances.

As Amazon’s business is more about books than hardware, giving away Kindle for Mac for FREE is the best marketing response.

Amazon next step. Amazon’s next step is to launch an LED-lighted hand appliance to serve as a hardware portal for the rest of Amazon’s business than. This appliance will be its direct response to the rest of iPad.

Like the Internet portal’s of old, this hardware portal is necessary in the marketing wars. Incidentally, this hand appliance can be a more basic hand phone than iPhone, a disruptive product in the Christensen sense, for which Amazon can find numerous willing partners.

Let us see if my prognostication here on Amazon’s next step is as good as FREE Kindle for Mac!

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Updated March 21, 2010

Bought my first book off the Internet via Kindle for Mac – Fault Line by Barry Eisler, one of my favorite fiction authors. The book was published in 2009 but never made it to Manila.

The electronic delivery went smoothly and in minutes.

Though the book was more expensive on the list price, the total cost to me would be cheaper if I consider that it would have cost me at least P300 more for the round trip to the book store and not counting the time. On the other hand, I also lost the potential for human contact on that trip …

Despite being screened on LCD, the contrast was not too bad though reflections on the glass cover of the iMac monitor from objects in the room were bothersome at the wrong time of day. There would be no reflections in the matte finish of the real Kindle.