By Wilson Rothman
As we reporters file into our seats for Amazon's big product unveiling Wednesday morning, the air won't exactly be thick with suspense. Amazon has long been rumored to be launching a tablet, and recent leaks have spilled essentially all the crucial details. But what's more, Amazon must launch a tablet ... right now ... or else.a
Yet despite the inevitability of a Kindle tablet — the retailer's answer to the popularity of both the iPad and the Barnes & Noble Nook Color — Amazon is taking a big risk. Not only is it alienating two of its most goliath frenemies, Apple and Google, but it's allegedly rushing its development process a bit, in order to get product out in front of the holiday season.a
OK, so first, why does Amazon have to do it? For starters, despite the massive popularity of the e-ink Kindle, there is a huge limitation to the format. Sure it's light and has a battery that lasts practically forever, and its price is dropping precipitously every 6 to 12 months. But you can't do cookbooks, children's books or magazines on it, and you certainly can't stream TV.a
Barnes & Noble is a book and magazine seller, and yet that company has launched a product that does more than anything Amazon's Kindle can. And word on the street is, B&N is ready to follow up the Nook Color with something more powerful.a
Amazon is a media giant. It rakes in money not just for paper books and shiny silver discs, but digital copies of music, movies and TV shows. It works with the best media sales models too: it offers subscription all-you-can-eat streaming video, but it also lets you rent or buy premium new releases a la carte, and of course download MP3 albums too — mostly at competitive prices. a
Follow Wilson's live coverage of the Amazon tablet launch starting at 9:30 a.m. Eastern/6:30 a.m. Pacific on Twitter at @wjrothman, and make sure you come back to msnbc.com's Technolog for every last detail.a
Where does all this content get eaten? Until recently, the PC was the only thing that could do it all, but people only gobble up so much on their PCs.a
Smart TVs and set-top boxes are a nice budding category, but Amazon has to compete with a lot of small players, and the small fries can play much more nicely with Apple and Google and Microsoft. Amazon can't do that.a
Amazon has done a lot of toe-dipping in the smartphone world, but so far not a lot of deep-diving. There are Kindle readers — dare you to read a book on your phone — and now there's an Android cloud music player. But there's no media hub. a
Tablets! That's the ticket. With a 7-inch tablet, you can watch movies and read books, stream music and shop for more. The battery can last far longer than a computer, and you don't need an Itty Bitty Book Light when you're up past lights-out. a
Only two problems: Google's Android tablets have been overpriced and underappreciated in the general populace. And Apple wants to sell its own books, movies and music, and keeps a close eye on what does or doesn't happen in its App Store — the only place besides the Web that a third party can reach an iPad owner. a
The solution: Amazon has to build its own.a
But Amazon doesn't have a ton of experience in hardware. And to make things worse, the team largely responsible for the success of the e-ink Kindle, an in-house design team called Lab 126, is allegedly not part of the development group working on the Kindle tablet. a
That came out in a recent exposé by GDGT's Ryan Block, along with the more unnerving notion that Amazon made some pretty severe compromises with industrial design and product specs in order to get a product in the hands of customers this Christmas. Scariest of all is Block's allegation that another Kindle tablet is due in the first quarter of 2012! And it'd be "the device Amazon really believes in." a
Even a compromised Amazon Kindle tablet — or Kindle Fire, according to the rumors — will sell well, for the reasons I outlined above. Barnes & Noble's Nook Color tablet was great but definitely underpowered, and even though it now has a richer operating system, an upgraded Nook Color would probably make the current model look pitiful.a
But Amazon wouldn't want to come out looking like they half-baked their debut tablet.a
Another concern is Amazon's use of Google's Android operating system. We always assumed Amazon — which runs its own Android app store — would embrace Android. But we also assumed it would ignore Google's rules and regulations, because it's counterproductive for Amazon to sell a rank-and-file Google product.a
The result is a bit of a confusing situation: While Amazon's tablet will run an existing Android OS version, it will likely have its own look and feel, run a subset of specially adapted Android apps, and will not be part of the Android community. It certainly won't be anywhere near the front of the line for OS updates and other Google-granted perks.a
The end result is that Amazon is going it alone. Any semblance of friendship with the other colossi is hereby chipped away, leaving behind the cold stare of competition. a
Does the company have what it takes? It certainly knows its way around media, and media seems to be crucial to a tablet's success. But unless Amazon sharpens its focus on the hardware and software development, and delivers quality gadgets, that cloud-based media goodness will be wasted.a
Follow Wilson's live coverage of the Amazon tablet launch starting at 9:30 a.m. Eastern/6:30 a.m. Pacific on Twitter at @wjrothman, and make sure you come back to msnbc.com's Technolog for every last detail.a
More on the still-alleged Amazon Kindle tablet from msnbc.com:a
Amazon's tablet called 'Kindle Fire,' says TechCrunch Amazon adds Buffy, other Fox shows, to instant videos Next Amazon Kindle is $250 7-inch Android reader, says TechCrunch Why Amazon's tablet will threaten the iPad
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