What Kindle Fire Means for Telcos

The Amazon Kindle Fire launch, with the simultaneous release of three new versions of the Kindle designed more as e-readers, likely illustrates a fundamental change in consumer electronics ecosystems, just as the application ecosystem also has changed around smart phones.

Needless to say, network access providers also face the need to create entirely new businesses based on partners of various types, all working within a larger context where devices, applications, commerce, advertising and cloud-based applications all are essential parts of the value consumers and businesses pay for.

The content and communications businesses these days are fundamentally different from those same businesses of 30 years ago in one fundamental way. Unlike the situation several decades ago, when value almost completely could be controlled by vertically-integrated providers, value now is derived from loosely coupled ecosystems.

In other words, where a telco in the past could control and vertically integrate every part of the “voice delivery” business, these days network-delivered applications with high value can be delivered to end users (both business and consumer) without any formal business relationship with an access provider. Razorsight | Corporate Blog