Is Amazon.com thinking to conceive a Kindle baby – An Android-based smartphone?

The e-business giants Amazon.com, Inc. entered the tablet industry four years ago with their first-in-line e-reader, Amazon Kindle. However, the online shopping magnate took a big leap in the industry this year with their first Android powered tablet, Kindle Fire.

There are, however, speculations that the new Android tablet has opened the Pandora’s Box for Amazon. After the advent of their first colourful touch-slate, which is known for its cheap price tag, $199 with a two-year contract with AT&T, the company is planning to plunge into the smartphone market. However, it’s just a speculation; there is no hard evidence to support it.

The Kindle Fire goes lock, stock and barrel with various versions starting from $79 to the $199. The entourage starts with the lowest bid made on the non-touch screen ‘Fire’ that only has a bunch of keys and a scroll-button at the bottom. It gives the first expression of being inconvenient but constant stream of reviews have revealed the device differently. The basic version is a good bargain for a pocket-money of $79.

With the release of the Kindle family right around the corner, Amazon is surrounded with rumours that they are looking to expand their mobile-device business with a larger 10-inch tablet and a much smaller 4-odd-inch smartphone. Truth be told, the company might be pondering on the notion itself.

Rumour has it that Amazon is planning to purchase the rankled ‘WebOS’ from Hewlett-Packard, who bought it from Palm for $1.2 Billion a couple of years back. However, the HP tablet-device, the TouchPad, was a major flop of the year due to the lack of developers to produce WebOS-compatible applications.

Amazon however, might nourish the operating system in a different way. It is anticipated that the online giants will invest in development of apps for the new OS same as Microsoft are doing with their Windows Phone 7-series.

However, Amazon plans on taking one step at a time. Currently, they have a designated appstore for Android and it will not bring any harm to the company to introduce a new Android-based handset to the consumers as the market is fully saturated with Android-based apps.

It is far-fetch when the company will announce their first smartphone or even develop one for that matter, but if their slate manages to grab a big slice of the already Android/iOS-dominated market, their next action will be to rock the cellular phone segment.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Oct 25 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry