Today Amazon locked up the Android ecosystem

I have been shouting from the rooftops, well the blog pages, that Amazon is poised to become a disruptor in the mobile space. The company has its own ecosystem that can compete nicely with that of Apple, and today with the launch of Cloud Drive and Cloud Player Amazon is quietly merging it with that of Android. It's actually bumping out the Android system with its own, truth be told.

Amazon's conquer of the Android ecosystem began quietly at the launch of the Android platform. It leveraged its Kindle ebook system on the new platform by building the Kindle app for Android. It put the app on other platforms too, a good business decision, but it was the Android app that figured heavily in future plans. The astounding growth of the Android platform brought Kindle book sales right along with it.

The company was quick to get the Amazon MP3 app on Android, too. It was like putting its MP3 store in the pockets of millions of customers. That number kept growing along with the Android platform, just like Kindle book sales. Rapidly Amazon was becoming a major force in Android-based retail.

The recent launch of the Amazon Appstore to sell Android apps firmly entrenched the company's business in the platform ecosystem. One could argue that it is the beginning of a process whereby Amazon takes over the ecosystem, by subtly pushing the Android Market to the side. Amazon is playing this cleverly, with only the top Android apps in its store initially. These popular apps, typical Amazon promotions (free app of the day) and a simple user experience will eventually push the "genuine" Android Market to the side of the road. One day folks are going to realize they are doing all of their Android shopping at Amazon.

Today's launch of cloud services is the next step in the Android takeover. It makes it easy and cheap to move all MP3 shopping/listening to both Amazon and Android. Hit a button, buy a music album that is stored in the Amazon cloud and listen to it on any Android device. In addition to the Amazon Appstore, the company has brought Android to its cloud services in one brilliant move. It insures that every Android device owner does business with Amazon of one type or another: apps, music, ebooks or all three.

The last step for a complete Amazon takeover of the Android ecosystem will be the appearance of the Amazon Tablet. It will be based on Android, of course, and have a good complement of hardware and software features to compete with other Android tablets. It will also have something no other product will have, a tight, easy to use integration with all of Amazon's services and shopping. It will make it easy to do everything you can do with a tablet while using Amazon's services, apps bought from Amazon, all while listening to music bought from Amazon that is streaming from Amazon servers. Game, set and match.