The e-reader wars are heating up.
On June 21, Barnes & Noble announced a price reduction
for its Nook e-reader from $259 to $199, along with a WiFi-only version of the
device for $149. While owners of either device can receive a free connection at
all AT&T hot spots, those with the original Nook can use its 3G connection
to download their e-books.
The Barnes & Noble announcement came almost exactly two
months after the bookseller announced a major software update for its e-reader,
which included a Web browser (in beta) and Android-based games. Another feature, “Read in Store,” allows Nook readers
to browse the retailer’s e-books for free at any Barnes & Noble bookstore,
for an hour at a time.
By the afternoon of June 21, however, Amazon.com responded
to Barnes & Noble with a little price cutting
of its own, reducing the cost of its original Kindle e-reader from $259 to
$189.
While the two companies necessarily see each other as prime
competitors, both also face a substantial competitive threat from Apple. During
the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference earlier in June, Apple CEO Steve
Jobs indicated that some 5 million e-books had been downloaded through the
iBookstore, or roughly 2.5 per iPad.
In any case, the breaking of the $200 price-point barrier
suggests that competition in the e-reader space could be reaching a new stage,
one that could also potentially result in smaller competitors being forced out
of business.
“I don’t see more than two, maybe three dedicated reading
companies in the market for selling e-books,” William J. Lynch, chief executive
of Barnes & Noble, told
The New York Times on June 21. “I think you are starting to see a shake-out
now.”
Originally dismissed as a niche item by some analysts, the
Nook and Kindle proved to be bestsellers during the holiday 2009 season. In
turn, that led to a number of smaller competitors intensifying their efforts to
take a piece of the market; during January’s Consumer Electronics Show, a
variety of e-reader prototypes appeared in booths throughout the exhibition
hall, with airy promises that the devices would make their debut sometime in
2010.
Since that point, the iPad has made its debut, along
with a set of upgrades to both the Kindle and the Nook. Meanwhile, smaller
manufacturers have encountered delays; in March, the CEO of Plastic Logic, which
has been planning a more business-centric e-reader called the Que, sent an
e-mail to customers suggesting that shipments of the device had been delayed
until summer. Other devices continue to muddle through development hell.
In the meantime, Barnes & Noble and Amazon seem
determined to race for an ever-lower price point. Will Amazon find a way to
match the WiFi-only Nook’s $149 price point? Can a $100 floor for e-readers be
far behind? If e-readers continue on a path towards becoming mass-consumer
items, both those scenarios are certainly possible.
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