Amazon Smart Phone on the Way?

Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White thinks Amazon will start selling its own phone later in 2012, and that it could prove to be “more sophisticated than many smart phones on the market,” Forbes reports.


The logical approach would be to optimize the device for content consumption, especially Amazon-provided content, the way the BlackBerry was optimized to support email. 


He adds that “longer term” it might also make sense for the company to make a move into the television business, as well. 


Apple's move into the smart phone business might have seemed dangerous at the time, but at least Apple always has been a manufacturer of computing devices, and a smart phone is a computing device that handles voice communications. 


Google's move into mobility was less logical, it can be argued, except as a key platform for mobile advertising, and is the mirror opposite of Apple's strategy, which is to merchandise content to sell devices. Google wants to "give away" or merchandise mobile software and phones to sell advertising.


Amazon's move into the e-reader and tablet businesses was a similar "make devices to grow the market for our content" strategy. A smart phone would make sense for similar reasons, as smart phones have become major content consumption platforms.