All Kindles Should be Virtual

Kindle books can now be purchased directly from Amazon.com on a PC or Mac using a standard web browser, and read on an iPhone, without actually owning a Kindle device. Why not take it to the next logical step -- read it on anything? (Click photo to enlarge)

I never thought I would say this, but Thank You Amazon For Coming To Your Damn Senses and Putting Kindle On An iPhone. Thank you Beezus. Hallelujah.

Great, so where's Kindle for BlackBerry? Kindle for Android? Kindle for PC? Kindle for Mac OS? Kindle for Linux?

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Let's get past the tired arguments that Amazon created the Kindle to be the best unitasker device, to be a book reader and nothing else. Great. All you people that are happy with your $359.00 slab of Chinese silicon who want to feel secure in your purchase should just be happy. Because the rest of us aren't. The rest of us don't feel like spending that kind of money.

We don't have any sort of metrics yet to conclusively prove it, and Amazon will probably never admit to it, but I am willing to bet that there will be more Kindle books sold for iPods and iPhones (and maybe even BlackBerries and Androids, if we're lucky) than for Kindles themselves in the next year.  This is fairly safe to assume, as there are millions of iPhones and Blackberries and only at best, a few hundred thousand Kindles.

As I have said numerous times, Amazon's business model for e-books should be in running the Kindle store. Hardware should not be their primary concern. I've said that Kindle should be a hardware spec, and that Amazon should allow other manufacturers to produce compatible devices. Well you know what? I was wrong. To hell with Kindle clones. All Kindles should be virtual.

Also Read -- Kindroid: Two Great Tastes That Would Taste Great Together

Also Read -- Amazon Kindle: It's Not For Us, Jack

Also Read -- Kindle Economics

Also Read -- Kindle Economics 2

Netbooks and MIDs are becoming extremely popular, due to their low cost and high level of functionality. So why not just make a Kindle.com and virtualize the entire experience? Write an application in Java for device portability purposes (then it can be easily ported to Android for manufacturers that really want to make Kindroids) or distribute an isolated Linux-based virtual appliance for PCs, Macs and Netbooks that does all the functions of a Kindle, complete with all the DRM restrictions so people can't copy the data off.  Then you've got an app that will run on anything, which opens up your e-book store to the widest audience possible.

Should Kindle books be available for all devices? Talk Back and Let Me Know.

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