Amazon Fights the iPad With 'Fire' E-Commerce Giant Unveils New Tablet PC for $199, Aiming to Undercut Apple in Fast-Growing Market
By STU WOO And JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG SEPTEMBER 29, 2011
Amazon.com Inc. jumped into the tablet computer fray, escalating its rivalry with Apple Inc. as each aims to provide both the devices and digital stores where people buy books, songs and movies.
Standing on stage in front of a large New York audience, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos Wednesday unveiled a music- and video-playing tablet dubbed the Kindle Fire. The color touch-screen gadget takes direct aim at Apple's market-dominating iPad-particularly with its price of $199, far below the iPad's starting price of $499.
The online retailer is gambling it can succeed with its tablet where several other giants, including Hewlett-Packard Co. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd., have so far failed. Unlike those companies, Amazon already has a vast library of digital content to sell and tens of millions of credit-card numbers.
The move highlights how the battle lines are blurring in retail, media and technology. Apple, once known as a computer company, is now the world's biggest music retailer and a leading phone maker. Amazon has morphed from a discount retailer of physical books to a digital department store that streams movies and sells its own gadgets.
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