The Amazon Smartphone Launches Tech’s Costliest War
As Foxconn (2038:HK) prepares to start cranking out smartphones for amazon.com (AMZN), as reported by Bloomberg, the rest of us should prepare for a spending spree the likes of which the technology industry has yet to see.
Amazon’s entry into the smartphone market signals that it wants full access to the big-boy club, whose members—(Apple (AAPL), Microsoft, (MSFT), and Google (GOOG))—are trying to provide a full range of mobile devices to consumers. E-readers and down-market tablets? No more. Jeff Bezos wants to own each mobile entryway that leads to music, movies, books, video games, and information storage.
If the rumors are to be believed, Facebook (FB), too, intends to make its own phone and throw its lot in against the big fellas.
It must seem so tempting to flirt with making your own hardware. Partly this is motivated by fear. Google has been a self-interested steward of the Android ecosystem, the software that will likely power phones by Amazon and Facebook. The search giant aims to highlight its own services on its devices, with prominent links to its music, video, and e-book stores, not to mention its Google+ social network. Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg must be terrified by the notion that Larry Page—and Apple’s Tim Cook—could stand between them and their customers.