2009 has been a big year for e-book readers – chiefly due to the efforts of Amazon. Amazon unveiled the Kindle 2 in February 2009, which was an improved and enhanced version of the original Kindle which was released in November 2007.

In June of 2009, Amazon followed up with the Kindle DX, which was a large format version of the Kindle 2. It was specifically targeted at readers of magazines, newspapers and academic textbooks – and it caused quite a commotion.

The potential for academic use – from interactive textbooks to constantly updated texts, and not overlooking the opportunity for academic bodies to save a lot of money – attracted a lot of attention. As well as entering into agreements with a number of colleges and universities, Amazon got a lot of free publicity from political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and also Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his role as Governor of California.

Thanks to Amazon’s foresight and determination – aided by all the free publicity – the Amazon Kindle reader has now become Amazon’s best selling product. At the moment, the Kindle has an astonishing 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market and has recently launched an international version. The Kindle has become virtually synonymous with e-book readers.

It’s probably worth pointing out that Amazon were, in fact, a late entrant to the e-book reader market. The original e-book reader, the Franklin eBookman, was launched in 1999 – a decade ago. The Sony PRS reader was launched in 2007, prior to the launch of the original Kindle.

Amazon might not have been first to market – but by a combination of marketing, technical innovation and an awareness of customer needs, Amazon has attained its present dominant position. The large selection of books available for the Kindle on Amazon’s website and the wireless connectivity (with no monthly fee) were every bit as key to the Kindle’s success as were the technical features of the device.

However, now that Amazon has – almost single handedly – established the market, it seems that manufacturers of consumer electronics want their share. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Plastic Logic, Asus – the list continues – all have their own devices set for release or in the late stages of development.

Wireless connectivity, currently one of Amazon’s unique selling points, will become normal and Barnes and Noble will offer users of their new Nook reader more than 1,000,000 titles to choose from. The new Sony Daily Edition reader will permit users to borrow books on loan from participating lending libraries. Meanwhile, there will probably be a standard e-book format adopted next year, which will allow users to lend e-books to friends and family or port them across to other readers if they want.

Right now, a lot of industry insiders are eyeing the line up of new readers and trying to predict which one is the Kindle Killer. However, Amazon has been pretty smart so far and they won’t give up their top position without a struggle. It took them less than eighteen months after the release of the original Kindle to launch the much improved Kindle 2. The DX followed just a few months later. Amazon almost certainly has some ideas for the further development of their Kindle family. Is it possible that the Kindle killer will actually be the Kindle 4 and that we could see this sometime in the next twelve months?

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