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MG Seigler must have missed my announcement about the smartphone I am creating (since everyone is nowadays). Thats ok for now I guess - he covers this thoughts on an Amazon phone below. I have to agree with him though why would Amazon try and do it alone.
So it looks like Amazon is entering the smartphone space as well — or at least thinking about it, if Tim Culpan, Olga Kharif and Ashlee Vance’s sources are correct.
And they likely are. This is the obvious next step after the Android-powered Kindle Fire. The one glaring problem would be patents — as in, Amazon likely has little or no mobile patents — but the article suggests that Amazon is already hard at work on resolving that potential roadblock.
The entire time I’m reading this news, I’m thinking: if they’re both being honest, doesn’t it seem obvious that Google and Amazon should team up in this endeavor? Think about it: Amazon’s strength is content and distribution — two of Google’s glaring weaknesses. Google strength is in mobile software/services and post-Motorola deal, mobile patents. Both have some hardware experience now, but neither yet holds a candle to Apple in that regard. But perhaps with their combined expertise…
And yet, it will never happen. While the two companies may not outright hate each other, post-Kindle Fire, they’re clearly at odds with one another. Google also just moved more forcefully into the developer cloud space that Amazon owns. And there are about a dozen other rivalry overlaps.
A joint effort by Amazon and Google to make a truly killer phone makes a lot of sense to me on paper. Sadly, that’s where it will stay.
(Via parislemon.)
