Are e-Reader Companies Expanding Too Fast? The largest companies in the world involved in the e-reader industry are all seeking to expand into foreign markets.
Over the course of 2012, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Kobo are increasing their presence in Europe. Why have these companies turned on the accelerator and is it good for business? Canadian based Kobo was purchased by Japanese e-Commerce giant Rakutan at the beginning of the year. Mapping The Entertainment Ecosystems of Apple, Microsoft, Google & Amazon. Please note: An update to this article is available here, it includes the December 2012 iTunes expansion (Music & Movies) as well as Xbox Music.
The choice of what phone or tablet to buy is one that often involves many considerations, chief amongst those is the physical device and the operating system that it runs. But I think there is a third fundamental consideration that is growing in importance: what services and entertainment ecosystems you’ll be able to access. You need only look back to the recent criticism of iOS 6, in which Apple replaced Google Maps with their own Maps app. When it comes to ecosystem, Apple proves size does matter. I've argued for a while that iTunes was the tip of Apple's sword.
Being able to take payments and sell content in more countries than anyone else let them push the App Store farther, faster than any of their competition. Now, years later, no one else is even coming close, and when viewed as an ecosystem play, there still isn't any viable competition. To make matters worse, Apple's model allows them to sell the iPad (and soon, the iPad mini in 90+ countries. And, because they make their money off hardware, they can even sell it where there's still no or limited iTunes support. That lets them seed the market so hardware is in hand when iTunes eventually, and inevitably follows.