Maybe the Kindle Fire isn’t as “media-deficient” a tablet as BN CEO William Lynch would have us believe. Amazon has just announced that they too will have support for Netflix and Pandora, as well as “several thousand more apps” when the Kindle Fire ships next week.
Usual suspects like Facebook and Twitter will run fine on Amazon’s tablet, as will games from big players like Zynga and EA. Amazon’s smaller Android Appstore runs parallel to Google’s, but Amazon claims that the apps they “carry” are tested for Kindle Fire compatibility.
Amazon’s focus on apps is probably meant to highlight the small size of BN’s own app store, but there’s no question that Amazon is feeling some pressure from their long-time rivals. The Nook Tablet came out swinging just a few days ago, and it received more than a little attention thanks to the full suite of media services that would come preloaded on the device. Meanwhile, CEO Lynch lobbed another mortar at Amazon when he referred to the Kindle Fire as a “vending machine” for Amazon’s services.
With Lynch’s claim, BN seems to have forced Amazon into a war of positioning. Amazon clearly has more meat when it comes to their media ecosystem, but BN smartly spun Amazon’s focus on their own services as a lack of choice for consumers. With both tablets nearing launch, watching the two of them slug it out for holiday supremacy should make for quite a show.