According to certain inside sources, Amazon is currently working on a set-top box of its own. The philosophy behind developing such a device is that Amazon plans to bring its online video content directly to television sets. The device is expected to arrive later this year.
People familiar with the matter have revealed that the e-retail giant is currently in talks with a number of content producers. Apparently, Amazon plans to offer not only its own content through the set-top box but also that of other vendors.
Amazon was able to create a huge market for its e-book library when Kindle line-up became a great success. Perhaps banking on this success, Amazon plans to fast-track its video content in a similar manner.
However, creating an Amazon-branded set-top box doesn’t make much sense. Nearly all of Amazon’s online video content is already available to most of the users through game consoles and connected TVs. This content is already available across mobile devices via a whole range of apps. So it is unclear as to how Amazon may benefit by launching a separate set-top box which would essentially be serving the same purpose.
Some analysts have speculated that Amazon may be planning to entice customers to sign up for its Prime service through the device. This approach may make some sense – Amazon may offer a highly affordable set-top box, together with free subscription of Prime for a limited time. In the long run, this can bring millions of new users to Amazon Prime.
Courtesy: NYT
[ttjad keyword=”kindle”]
