Amazon introduces the new Kindle Fire

On Monday, November 14, Amazon.com Inc. began shipping it's new Kindle Fire tablet in hopes that its new tailored software will help it compete with Apple's market-leading iPad. The tablet sells for $199 and contains several thousand apps including ones from Netflix Inc., Zynga Inc., IMDb movie database, Audible audio-book and Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN. It will also launch new features on the Pulse newsreader allowing consumers to send stories they read on Pulse to other apps on their Kindle.

With the iPad currently commanding 70% share of the tablet market, competing tablets such as Amazon's Kindle have realized the importance of being on the cutting edge of software. However, they are still constantly working on ways to improve hardware design as well. Next year, Amazon is expected to release another tablet computer with a touchscreen that is 9.7 inches in size to go head-to-head with the already 9.7 inch iPad.

Amazon has a particular interest in using this new software to sell more digital books and movies due to the fact that Amazon loses an average of $10 to $15 on each Kindle device sold. They hope that with these new apps that are only available on the Kindle, they can gain more customer interest and make up for their current shortfalls.

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