Ok. They are testing a smartphone.

What is Amazon going to do here? I look at Palm, and saw an awesome OS that rivaled (at the time) iOS in many ways. Yeah, the hardware was lacking (this article cites Amazon shopping China and analogous hardware concerns, though they couldn't be as bad I would hope), but in the end, it was a platform that could not attract developers among other things. Didn't happen under HP. Look at what has happened to RIM, another platform sans developers. It's the same concern you hear repeated over and over again with Microsoft. Can they, somehow manage to make a convincing case to developers en masse?

And looking at Amazon's app store and forked Android strategy, all I've seen with their Kindle platform is yet another tablet without developers.

I know they are all trying, but I have to wonder when one of them are going to come up with some strategy that is so out of the box and different that we all have collectively no choice but to say "Damn. That is exciting. This could get them in the game."

I think that the value-add for someone else trying to get in the game has to almost come outside of broad app offerings. They need to avoid the 'chicken-egg' scenario by breaking in from the side.

For me, one of the little bouts of genius that Apple implemented on iOS was that you could not download completely free apps unless you had a valid credit card loaded into their system (yeah, I know you can get around this by purchasing a 5$ gift card). Believe me when I say that I told myself that I would never actually buy an app from the Appstore, as free software covered essentially all core functions and services in some form or another. But with the mandatory credit card filing, breaking that promise was effortless, and break it I did. Many times. With a tap.

Amazon and Apple both have their customers connected to their stores, and they both have terrific stores that are best in class, but while Apple sells media, Amazon goes one better and sells real world goods. All goods. Everything you can possible think of.

I think Amazon could benefit from this in a big way if they play their cards right.

I didn't know this for years, but Amazon has a service that lets you set a recurring schedule of products to be delivered at specific times, -could be every week, month, etc. I thought "How cool, -I can completely eliminate my trips to Target and just have all my non-perishable goods delivered to my back door every month or two." Cleaning supplies, paper towels, shampoo, -you name it.

It solves a problem for people, but it is hidden and not obvious or intuitive. I think it would be at least interesting if Amazon took a service like this right to the user and made it a prominent feature of their phone. What if, part of setting up your Kindle phone you were prompted to set up your shopping list, or at least had the option in a not to intrusive way? It wouldn't have to be turned on, but with the push of the button the users knew they were turning on a stream of goods, already effortlessly connected to their credit card, that would eliminate a massive percentage of their shopping. What if there was a grocery list app baked in (not a generic shopping app, but one tailored to an IRL behavior specifically) where you could just jump to your products and smash the 'send now' button when you run out of something and it arrives the next day.

Having the phone be the hub that eliminates a lot of your shopping and manages how you do that could be a big selling point if done right. While Amazon would love to reap the benefits of more online sales, they shouldn't treat that as the goal, -the whole experience would have to be focused on solving a problem for consumers and providing a value, which would be eliminating as much time spent on shopping IRL. It could be hard to do, but these are the kinds of value adds that a player like Amazon might need to execute, and execute exceedingly well, in order to get the platform beloved by consumers enough to make developers one day sit up and pay attention.

Maybe it's a terrible idea, but I just have this nagging feeling that new players are gonna keep failing unless they find a hook that leverages some other asset. I think Microsoft has a similar opportunity with their phone and the xBox, and while I know they see it too, it remains to be seen whether or not they will exploit it to the hilt.