In today's mobile age of technology you
don't have long to make a splash in the marketplace. So when your new
mobile device has only sold 35,00 units, been the main cause of a
$170 million dollar write-off and you still have $83 million dollars
worth of inventory in limbo all after just
3 months it is time take a look at what went wrong. This the
problem that Seattle-based Amazon faces after their first attempt at
enter the smartphone marketplace didn't quite go as planned. Now they
need to ask themselves: What went wrong? Can we salvage this or do we
need to start over?
Shortly after Jeff Bezos first
announced the Fire smartphone in June
the critics
started their attacks. Their was talk that limiting it an AT&T
exclusive was a big mistake, others cited that users will not want to
abandon their android smartphones for an offshoot that has less apps
and the smartphone is just poorly constructed inside and out. Where
the critics right from the start? Was Amazon that far off base with
their smartphone? On the first two it seems the critics were right on
the mark.
Even thought the iPhone was a success
when it started out as an AT&T exclusive that was in 2007 when
the smartphone market was still in the growing stages. In 2014 with
the smartphone market more developed it seems that the days of
exclusives are over. Looking at the marketshare of mobile device it
does appear that the quality and quantity of available apps does
matter. While Amazon uses android as the base for their operating
system has been altered to the point that it can not use the apps
from Google play and is limited to what is available in Amazon's app
store. On the third criticism the verdict is sort of a mixed bag with
some people split on the outward design of the smartphone. The two
problems here seem to be the interface that is constantly moving your
apps with their last used functionality and the lack of popular apps.
All of these problem can be overcome
but to what cost to Amazon? The interface problem could be just a
matter of a simple update. The amount of apps that the smartphone can
use might be a little more with either Amazon going to start android
or speed up the rate of app compatibility. The carrier problem could
just be a matter of unlocking the smartphone altogether so a wider
group can use it.
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