Photograph by Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is retooling the Kindle Fire to revive slumping demand in a market dominated by Apple.
The similarities these days between Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and the late Steve Jobs are no coincidence.
Bezos has channeled Apple’s co-founder before. It happened again yesterday when Amazon unveiled a new line of Kindle e-readers and tablets that take direct aim at the iPad. Attendees said the event was eerily similar to Apple’s carefully choreographed product announcements.
Bezos made his presentation alone on a sparse stage as huge images of Kindles flashed on the screen behind him. Like Jobs, who as Apple’s CEO relished the drama around new announcements, Bezos wore jeans and held each new gadget to show the audience.
And he had one more thing.
Each time Bezos unveiled a new Kindle, he listed the features and then the price, except when it came to the last tablet. After wrapping up prices for the other Kindle Fire HDs, he asked the audience a question.
“What is the most popular price point for a tablet?” he said. “$499 – that is the most popular price point. So we asked ourselves, `If we were going to sell a tablet for $499, the most popular price point, what would we put in it?”’
He then asked: “What is the ultimate tablet feature?”
Pause.
“4G LTE wireless,” he said, as a larger-than-life image of the Kindle Fire HD 4G LTE appeared on the screen behind him and applause ensued.
Stay tuned for whether Bezos begins sporting a black mock turtleneck or describes his products as ”magical.”
