Amazon has launched a new service that aims to help schools and businesses manage their Kindles and ebooks from a single webpage. Kindle Whispercast allows an IT team to manage an organisation’s whole complement of Kindles from a single page. This should significantly reduce headaches for IT people who are trying to cope with the growing use of Kindles among employees.
While Kindle Whispercast won’t mean much to retail customers, education and business users are likely to flock to the new system. Amazon’s rivals, most notably Barnes & Noble, have tried similar schemes in the past, but I’d argue that Amazon’s solution is both more elegant and more complete than anything else currently on the market.
At the moment, Kindle Whispercast works with Kindle e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets. Amazon says that the system will support distribution of Kindle Fire applications. For more details of the new system, see the press release. Amazon has thrown down a gauntlet, and it’s now up to rivals to respond or risk losing significant market share in this growing area.
You have to give amazon credit for innovation. They are always coming up with the latest thing in the book industry!
Posted by Christine Keleny | October 18, 2012, 3:13 pm