Why Amazon's New Tablet May Pose A Greater Threat To NetFlix Than To Apple

Fact: my commenters are smarter than yours. The latest proof comes from Dennis McCunney, weighing in on a post examining whether fire-sale prices by the weaker players in the tablet market will result in a tablet price war. I’m running his comment in full, below.

I see Amazon’s tablet the same way I saw their Kindle. For Amazon, it’s not about the device, it’s about the content.

The Kindle primed the eBook pump. For Amazon, eBooks were a natural. They were already the world’s largest catalog retailer, and probably the world’s largest book retailer. They had the infrastructure in place to display the catalog and take the order. Immediate fulfillment via digital download was a simple addition. eBooks have no warehousing or distribution costs. For Amazon, what’s not to like?

The fact that Kindle apps for PC, tablet, and smartphone followed was no surprise. Amazon wants to sell you eBooks. Whether you buy and read them on an actual Kindle or a device with a Kindle app doesn’t matter. I’m sure Amazon makes money on the Kindle, though it may be single digit margins, but the Kindle was simply building a market. Selling you eBooks was the point of the exercise.

Assume a tablet will be the same. A friend refers to his iPad as a “media consumption device”, and he’s quite right. An Amazon tablet will be one as well, and like the Kindle, will be a way for Amazon to sell you the content.

Broadband is becoming pervasive enough that it is feasible for many consumers to keep their media on the cloud and access it on demand. Amazon is a major player in cloud services, and has the servers and bandwidth to be where the consumer keeps their media, and the catalog to sell it to them.

Any bets we won’t see Amazon getting into the music and movie areas? It’s content they can sell you, store for you, and stream to you for a fee. If I were Netflix, I’d be really nervous about this.

IPhone 5: Thin 'World Phone' With No LTE 4G, Analyst Says

Big new carriers, rather than support for blazing fast LTE 4G wireless data networks will make headlines when the next iPhone is announced, JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz wrote in a note to investors Monday morning

Two new iPhone models will be launched this fall, Moskowitz writes. The iPhone 5 will be a lighter, thinner handset that will work on both GSM and CDMA networks (a so-called ‘world phone’). Another device, based on the iPhone 4 with ‘minor improvements’ could ‘target the midrange and focus on China,’ replacing Apple's iPhone 3GS.

In short, Moscowitz isn’t predicting any big surprises inside the iPhone 5:

Our research indicates that the iPhone 5 stands to be lighter and thinner, carry a larger Retina display (vs. iPhone 4’s 3.5 inch screen), and include an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash.We also expect the iPhone 5 to be a world-mode phone (i.e., GSM + CDMA) but not LTE-capable.

The new iPhone 5 stands to be based on the iPad 2’s A5 processor or a newer A6 version. We also expect 1GB of RAM to increase memory access times. Other improvements are increased battery life due to advancements in battery technologies, the printed circuit board (PCB), the touch screen, and LCD power consumption metrics. Lastly, as is widely-expected, the iPhone 5 will be iCloudcapable and run on iOS 5, which offers many enhancements, including ones that are Android-like in nature, such as wireless syncing and advanced voice control.

Moscovitz writes that Apple could announce deals with a number of big carriers, such as China Telecom, which has 100 million subscribers; Sprint, with 52 million subscribers; and T-Mobile USA, with 33 million subscribers.

Dirt Cheap PlayBook May Mean A Tablet Price War Is Coming

The BlackBerry PlayBook is a disaster, and not just because sales have collapsed. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company sold shipped 200,000 of the tablet computers last quarter, down from 500,000 during the earlier quarter.

No, it’s worse than that. BlackBerry can’t afford to exit the tablet business — as rival Hewlett-Packard did — because the QNX operating system running the PlayBook is the company’s future.

BlackBerry will be shifting its handsets over to the new software next year, so pulling the plug on the only mobile device to use the software now would be suicide.

So what now? Maybe a fire sale. Canadian cable company Rogers is selling the PlayBook, which normally starts at about $511, Canadian, to employees for $249 and up, according to Boy Genius Report. That hints price cuts for the rest of us are coming.

The result could be ugly for RIM’s profit margins. HP’s TouchPad sparked a buying frenzy at the unsustainable price of $99 because HP couldn’t afford to stay in the tablet market; RIM’s BlackBerry may have to find a price that generates similar enthusiasm because RIM can’t afford to exit the tablet market.

So who can afford to make the least amount of money for the longest here? Maybe Amazon. Analysts are guessing its forthcoming tablet will cost $250, a price that probably can’t be matched without accepting single-digit margins.

That’s an interesting challenge for a company like, say, Apple (which, granted, has done well when faced with interesting challenges). If you’re an online retailer with a profit margin of 2.38%, like Amazon, however, single-digit margins don’t look like a challenge at all, they look like an opportunity.

Military Contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Hit By Hack Attack

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries a Japanese industrial giant that makes submarines, missiles and components for nuclear power plants, has suffered a major hacker attack, Reuters reports, citing the Yomiuri newspaper.

According to the Japanese newspaper, information was stolen from the company’s computers in the attack. Mitsubishi Heavy has confirmed the attack, but said it is still investigating whether there were any information leaks.

The company said about 80 virus-infected computers were found at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo as well as manufacturing and R&D sites including Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works, Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works and Nagoya Guidance & Propulsion System Works.

New BlackBerry Bold commercial shows off the "Harmony" of touchscreen + keyboard

RIM posted a new commercial for the BlackBerry Bold 9930/9900 to their youtube account a few days ago, showing off the harmony of the touchscreen + physical keyboard experience on what they refer to as the "new" BlackBerry Bold. You can check out the video above.

Personally, I'm LOVING that the iconic BlackBerry form factor now has a touchscreen. I use it all the time mixed in with my trackpad and keyboard use. I've tried going back to my touchscreen-less 9780, and now it just feels weird not to have it. That said, a few of my friends who have picked up the 9900 (including my gf), have mentioned on more than one occassion they wish they could turn the touchscreen off. I guess they're so used to not having a touchscreen that they're not really using it all that much so more than anything they find it gets in the way with accidental swiping. That option doesn't exist of course, but for those who can't stand a touchscreen the newly announced BlackBerry Curves don't have one.

Bell and Virgin Mobile Canada launch BlackBerry Curve 9360, Torch 9860 also arrives on Bell

Launching a few days ahead of shcedule, both Bell and Virgin Mobile Canada have the BlackBerry Curve 9360 available for purchase on their websites. Pricing is consistent across the sites with the entry level device coming in at $349.99 off contract or as low as $49.95 on a 3 year contract.

If you're more interested in the new Black Berry Torch 9860, Bell has gone ahead and released it online as well. The full touchscreen device can be yours for $599.95 off contract or $129.95 on a 3 year contract.