KindlePlaZa

It’s been the quiet, almost refined area of the digital revolution. But while Amazon’s Kindle certainly did more to open up the book publishing archives than any device previous to it, there is growing feeling that the Kindle was just the floorshow for the main act – Apple’s iPad.

In a report in InformationWeek today, the online title says that since August, e-reader market share has basically left the Kindle and joined the iPad.

The Kindle’s market share between August 1 and November 8 fell from 62% to 47% while Apple’s iPad e-reader share went the other way – rising from 16% to 32%.

Clearly, the Kindle is still in front – but it is nowhere near the cakewalk it used to be for Amazon and certainly, Apple won’t have minded doubling its market share inside three months.

There are any number of reasons why the iPad could be gaining over the Kindle – colour screen, more applications, more variety just for starters.

However, there are changes on the way for the Kindle – if not specifically, then for electronic ink readers as a technology.

The first colour-screened e-ink readers are just now coming to market with Chinese brand Hanvon the first to release a new 9.7-inch colour ereader to market. The only problem – it’s selling for $530. It won’t be available until February 2011 according to Digitimes.com. The initial version will feature Wi-Fi only but for an extra 8-10%, a 3G model will be released later.

The iPad certainly isn’t perfect and its faults have been well documented but it will be interesting to see whether having a colour screen will help Amazon keep hold of its ever-decreasing lead in the e-book market.

With Christmas almost upon us, it’ll be interesting to see the sales figures over the next three months.

refer source : http://techlogg.com/2010/12/will-color-screens-save-kindle-from-apples-ipad/1790