News written by Rich Fiscus (September, 2012)

In the first installment of our look at the major mobile device players we dissected Apple, who were really the first company to create a combined device/content store ecosystem. Already a growing force in the content market, last year Amazon entered the market with the Kindle Fire, a generally unimpressive piece of hardware that was mostly a BlackBerry Playbook with the serial numbers filed off.

At first glance Amazon's tablet business appears very similar to Apple's. Apple is the leader in music sales and Amazon is the top ebook seller. However their business models are actually polar opposites. The iTunes store is a side business for Apple, designed to help sell hardware. Amazon, on the other hand, sells tablets as an incentive to purchase content. Apple's profit margins are the highest of any device vendor. Amazon aims for volume at the expense of profit per unit.

For consumers this is a mixed bag. Amazon's music store is almost inconsequential in sales terms compared to iTunes but the selection is still good and the prices are competitive. Relative to Netflix their streaming video service, Amazon Prime, is similarly second string. Netflix has a distinct advantage in selection but that's also reflected in the price. In case it matters to you, and that would put you in the minority, Amazon also has VOD and (DRM-infested) video purchases.

The end of the year is drawing closer, accompanied as always by the Christmas shopping season. In addition to the millions of tablets and smartphones being sold this also means a bumper crop of the latest devices from the biggest names in mobile computing.

The iPhone 5 has already seen record preorders and Amazon began shipping two new 7-inch tablets last week with the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD scheduled to leave the warehouse at the end of November. In addition to those offerings there is already a successful 7-inch tablet from Google and Asus, the Nexus 7. And of course the much hyped redesigned Windows 8, on both ARM and x86 powered tablets, is coming next month.

For a consumer in search of mobile computing Nirvana this may be the closest thing to paradise. For others the confusing array of offerings is perhaps more like purgatory. Most of them are similar from a technical perspective but they actually offer significantly different experiences. In fact it's fair to say that what consumers are looking for (and at) isn't the silicon and glass or any other of the bits and pieces that go into a mobile device.

The experience is what they're paying for and each product line varies greatly in that respect. The look and feel of a particular app or bit of content may be hardware bound, but the overall experience is largely shaped by the tablet maker's business model. Over the course of several articles we will take a look at what those models are, how they affect the smartphone and/or tablet experience for the user, and both the advantages and potential pitfalls they present.