Who Got Burned By Amazon's Kindle Fire: The 6 Biggest Losers

Amazon is having a Kindle Fire (sale), and some of its competitors just might be in trouble.

The Amazon tablet, the Kindle Fire, will be released on November 15 for $199, and with the buzz it has garnered, its attractive price point, and Amazon's history of selling loads and loads of handheld devices, it might be time for some companies to recalculate their Q4 earnings or do some soul searching.

We've already gone over the reasons that the iPad might be affected, though instant analysis seems to suggest that Apple shouldn't be worried. Here are the day's REALLY big losers, starting with Amazon's old brick-and-mortar frenemy, Barnes & Noble:

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Comments

[koNko]

04:19 AM on 10/05/2011

2 of your "loses" for others are actually a lose for Kindle users and ultimately Amazon. Shorting Google Market may hector the faithful to Amazon's site but limits choices open to other Android users - who chose Android for choice in the fist place.

Is the unavailability of the Kindle outside the US a lose for Kindle users or a lose OF Kindle users? This is GREAT news for Apple, which is international and going like gangbusters in places like China (where Apple has presence and Amazon has none) and the EU and Japan (where Amazon has online market share to lose).

Otherwise, I'd pretty much agree with your take.

[cjgribner]

10:09 AM on 09/30/2011

My husband bought me a Nook Color for my birthday and I bought a Kindle out of curiosity. I like the Nook but find it much harder to navigate and I like the Kindle except for the forward/backward buttons on the side of it that I'm always pushing accidentally. Personally, I'm old fashioned and still perfer a real book in my hands. The one thing I have against both of them is the inability to sell/trade the books once I've bought them.

[ledchip]

09:16 AM on 09/30/2011

At that price point I might just get one in addition to my iPad. Amazon puts this into people's hands and they will buy more of their stuff. Even if they lose money on every unit this will make them money in the long run.

[Gudrun]

03:20 PM on 09/30/2011

I have an iPad, and I put in an order for the Kindle Fire today. I like the size of it, think it will be a bit more portable, and I've always been a happy Amazon customer. Just wish they would put AC into their warehouse for those workers!

[frank day]

03:55 PM on 09/30/2011

Agree about the workers.

I wish they could find a way to make these in the U.S..

I have a friend who is also buying a Fire because of the size.

[koNko]

04:24 AM on 10/05/2011

The idea of eBooks is to eliminate those workers; why the heck should Jeffey waste money on air conditioning that will only lower Amazon profits and raise their carbon footprint?

Get with the program.

[Vitaly Rozman]

08:01 AM on 09/30/2011

That's a good news! I'd like to try one myself.

[Sergey Sinkovsky]

08:19 AM on 09/30/2011

DO WANT!

[trekie70]

12:32 AM on 09/30/2011

I won't be retiring my Nook Color any time soon. I just recently purchased an SD card from www.n2acards.com that allows me to boot up the 2.3.4 Android OS, essentially turning my Nook into a nearly fully-functional tablet, just $35.

Like any other new gizmo, there will be bugs to work out (remember the early iterations of the iPhone?). The fact that Amazon was proprietary for so long and just recently(in the last 6 mos.) made Kindle able to check out library books thru Overdrive is also a red flag for me. From what I've read, it lacks many of the features of the IPad and other tablets, so I think it will be a future version of the Fire that takes away any market share, not this first one, if it ever does.

[ponyloco]

09:22 PM on 09/29/2011

that was supposed to be device...

oops...

[ponyloco]

09:22 PM on 09/29/2011

people are way overestimating the possibilities of this advice...

or at least the people owned by AOL who likely have some vested interested in these PR stories veiled as news posts...

[NerdyStudent]

02:40 AM on 10/02/2011

Really? It's rare there are any stories here about non-ipad related goobligook, that aren't hit jobs on the rival companies to Huffpo's chosen love-child, Apple.

[ponyloco]

01:32 AM on 10/04/2011

yeah...maybe you're right...

it just seemed odd to me to be laying on all the love for a device that doesn't remotely stack up against the iPad...

now the HTC Jetstream - that's an iPad contender...

[johnsin]

09:02 PM on 09/29/2011

Does anyone have a clue to the Battery life on this thing? I can't imagine it being like the original Kindles.. 1 month! That's what I love about my Kindle, I never have to plug it in.. and I can carry 120 web and programming reference books with me where ever I go!

[ewj1]

09:35 PM on 09/29/2011

It is 8-10 hours of normal reading. I would assume that means 4 hours of movies/video

[johnsin]

08:42 PM on 09/29/2011

Uhm, people.. Just because it doesn't ship with the Android Market doesn't mean you can't just go download the .APK and install it yourself. People really need to get out, root, and upgrade their devices.. they don't realize their crappy Android device with 2.2 they bought last year could be running 2.3.5 in a matter of minutes and feel like a completely new phone!

[Ampoliros]

08:34 PM on 09/30/2011

Except that with 8gb storage and no sd slot a rooted Fire is more of a novelty than a useful device.

[gposner29]

08:28 PM on 09/29/2011

The smaller one is cheaper and fits nicely into every bodily orafice. Since finding work, contributing to society and making a meaningful difference is out of the question, we may as well get sidetracked with an endless supply of toys for diversion until our borders are further penetrated and our kids set record setting low test scores.

[javajava]

06:23 PM on 09/30/2011

i clicked fave but i meant to flag.

[dudervision]

06:49 PM on 09/29/2011

If I called a female friend "Happypants", I'd probably get slapped! I actually love my kindle...APP RUNNING ON MY IPAD!

[NerdyStudent]

02:41 AM on 10/02/2011

That's cool. Caps lock isn't.

[toomuchpr]

06:32 PM on 09/29/2011

How can anyone be burned when this thing does not exist yet? They wouldn't let the press touch it because it is vaporware. Want to bet that more than half of the demos were "canned" fakery?

If they don't sell 3-5 million of these in the first quarter and they don't sell 3-5 million Amazon Prime subscriptions AMZN stock is going to take a huge hit. If they do sell 3-5 million of these things, the AMZN bottom line is going to take a huge hit because it is a loss leader.

Why didn't Amazon just pay Apple/Samsung/Moto/Goog etc. $10 a pop to put the Amazon store, Kindle App, and AMAZON prime free trial on ever new Tablet and avoid losing $50/pop on the Kindle Fire? Could the Kindle Fire tank AMZN if it fails? The AMZN P/E is hovering around 100. Will investors flee before the Fire strategy ever returns on investment?

We will see the answers to these ?'s but until this thing is out and reviewed, please don't act like a sheep, pre-buy it or talk about who got burned, because GOT is past tense and this is a future product that does not yet exist.

[LightShadow62]

05:30 PM on 09/29/2011

The only people who will get burned are those that buy this piece of tripe.

[Lalita Amos]

11:16 AM on 09/30/2011

Yeah, sure.

[NerdyStudent]

02:42 AM on 10/02/2011

It makes for a nice drink coaster...as all tablets do.

[m11533]

05:16 PM on 09/29/2011

That couple just don't measure up against the "Sweater Guys".

[senshine]

05:09 PM on 09/29/2011

what in the world is Salman Khan, the biggest steroid-pumping Bollywood actor of all time, doing at at a Kindle Fire release event????? (slide 4)

[airmikee99]

05:13 PM on 09/30/2011

That's a picture of the RIM Playbook release event.