全通翻譯/翻譯社

Fire in the Clouds

It has been labeled the “iPad Killer,” but just how much of a threat will Amazon's Kindle Fire be to Apple's tablet?

While some analysts see the two devices as tilting at completely different markets, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos believes the Fire can ignite competition through one factor alone: price. “What we are doing is offering premium products at non-premium prices,” Bezos told Bloomberg ahead of the Fire's launch in September. “There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less,” he added in a letter to customers on the Amazon home page. “We are firmly in the second camp.”

Bezos touts the Fire as a service rather than a tablet — another cause for concern for Apple. Other tablet developers, claims Bezos, have failed to cotton on to this. A quick look at Amazon's history shows that a service-oriented approach has been vital to the company's success. Starting life as an online bookstore with next to no physical inventory, the company quickly diversified into music, movies, electronics and software. It now sells server space and, with its acquisition of Netflix, online video streaming.

However, the launch of Kindle Fire means that it is now covering all the same bases as Apple: hardware, software and services.

亞馬遜之火點燃雲端大戰

亞馬遜的 Kindle Fire 被貼上「iPad 殺手」的標籤，但它對蘋果平板電腦的威脅究竟有多大？

儘管有些分析師認為這兩件產品所偏向的市場完全不同，亞馬遜執行長傑夫‧貝佐斯仍相信 Kindle Fire 透過價格這個單一因素就足以點燃競爭。「我們的做法是以低廉的價格提供優質的產品，」貝佐斯在九月推出 Kindle Fire 之前對彭博社表示。「世界上有兩種公司：一種努力多收顧客的錢，另一種努力少收顧客的錢，」他在亞馬遜網站首頁的一封致顧客信函當中補充道：「我們絕對是後者。」

貝佐斯推銷 Kindle Fire 為一項服務，而不只是一部平板電腦──這點對蘋果而言又是另一個值得憂心之處。貝佐斯指稱其他平板電腦開發商都未能意識到這一點。快速回顧亞馬遜的歷史就能發現服務導向的做法一直是這間公司能成功的關鍵。以網路書店起家，且近乎全無實體存貨的亞馬遜很快就將觸角延伸至音樂、電影、電子產品與軟體等領域。現在，亞馬遜販賣伺服器儲存空間，而且在併購 Netflix 之後，也開始販售線上串流影片。

不過，Kindle Fire 的推出代表亞馬遜的營業範圍已涵蓋所有和蘋果相同的基本區塊：硬體、軟體與服務。

資料來源：biz 互動英語電子報