- Channel. Consumers already buy consumer electronics goods -- including the Kindle -- through Amazon. Forrester found that customers are much more likely to buy a tablet from an online retailer like Amazon than from a wireless carrier, which is the main channel for most of these other tablets.
- Content. Amazon already sells Kindle electronic books, music, and video content, and is building an Android app store that will launch later this month. And it's an obvious leader in e-commerce comparison shopping -- a top use of tablets.
- Pricing flexibility. Most Apple competitors are relying on wireless carriers to market and sell their tablets. But the mass consumer market wants inexpensive tablets, and don't want to be locked into expensive wireless data contracts. Amazon has the leeway to sell a tablet below cost and then make up the difference selling goods and services online.
Forrester also concludes that Amazon has the motivation to launch its own tablet this year, thanks to Apple's increasingly tough rules for selling e-books and in-app subscriptions.
Forrester also concludes that Microsoft, Sony, or Vizio could disrupt the tablet market by launching their own tablets. In the case of Microsoft, at least, that seems very unlikely: the company is instead focusing development on Windows 8 and relying on its traditional OEM partners to package it on tablets.
