When Notion Ink announced in their blog their Kindle pact with Amazon, many got quite excited. Some went as far as wondering if something was afoot between Amazon and NI and if Notion Ink could sell Adam on Amazon.
Calm down people. Amazon's prime interest is to put Kindle on as many devices as possible so people buy books from them. My grandmother could design a Tablet and Amazon will probably let me put Kindle on it.
Anyway, let's move on. Would it be possible that NI could sell Adam on Amazon? Should it?
Let's assume that NI will sell on Amazon, indulge me here. For a moment, forget about NI. Look at it from Amazon's perspective and what happens in a large retail organization that's looking to sell new products as part of its range.
First, some range/products/category manager (different titles) has to say 'hey, I think Adam is a great product to sell on our website because it will sell gazillions/will make us good margins/will bring us brand/etc' and then they decide to range it in their product line.
These managers are typically measured against several metrics - revenues, profitability, quality of products etc. so they need to make sure that what they range will sell, sell with good profits, sell with less returns or problems, be available, be supplied on time, or not create a negative image of the retailer, and so on.
Big retailers are also usually ball-breakers with small suppliers. They try to extract as many concessions as possible (plenty of instances of retailers driving their suppliers to bankruptcy) and will usually be tough on quality issues. Go down a relative benchmark more than a couple of times, boom - they pull the product off the 'shelves' and the supplier sits on unused inventory. It could get worse - supplier may have to pay penalty fines.
You see, it isn't all peaches and rainbows if NI could get listed on Amazon. If NI makes a loss per unit sold, then the more Amazon sells, the deeper they drive NI to loss! Not only that, it makes no sense for a small company to get onto a big retailer without first sorting its own serious quality and supply chain issues. Not only will Amazon punish NI if there are quality issues, the buyers will bury them with 1-star reviews, which is a surefire way of killing the brand forever. Selling on Amazon means NI acknowledges that it is now mass market and most buyers there are not l337 hack0rs and the tablet must need no tinkering.
Long way to go. Don't wish for something you can't handle, not yet.
Great post, as usual, in your blog as well as in the forums. Really disheartened to say but folks who think NI is fully geared for mass market are either disillusioned, sheeple, naive or a combination thereof. Rohan's 'marketing spin' of last quarter of last year seems to have a lingering effect. In one of the articles Rohan was quoted saying that he has been involved in 'business' since he was but a small lad. Clearly, the experience is telling !
ReplyDeleteIn one of the articles Rohan was quoted saying that he has been involved in ‘business’ since he was but a small lad. Clearly, the experience is telling !
ReplyDelete>>I would say he was involved in "Scams" or "Cheating" or may be "Robbery"
@Rude - Well, personally, I wouldn't call him any of that, but the way he's running the company sure raises questions of competence and control.
ReplyDelete@SRK - He says a lot of things, hard to figure what's real and what's imagined ;)
Your observation/commentary is both presumptuous and out of touch with reality. Anything resembling a "pre-order" stage for a product from any size company provides a lot of useful information - for the company (OEM). There are several unknowns the public is not privy to that make possibilities - the truths of albeit much different from how you describe - nothing more than crackpot speculation. If something big is brewing we should all expect to have no knowledge of any partnerships, supply/manufacturing agreements and/or internal s/w design decisions that may come to be revealed. It is without that knowledge that you, I or anyone else should realize that we outsiders have no credibility in anything we might observe or speculate in passing it on as commentary. Expanding on this is why you will not find either a similar or contradicting piece from me personally. My response here serves only to enlighten how inappropriate anyone's (negative or positive) opinions are at this point in time in regards to Notion Ink's 'adam'. It is not wrong to have an opinion but anyone who attempts to publicize it short of being absolute is simply doing so ostentatiously. I leave you with this as food for thought...
ReplyDelete"Every thing in his composition was little; and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind, without any of the virtues, or even the vices, of a great one." -Philip Dormer Stanhope
21st and third week of May is over and another false promise. On thing is sure about Rohan is that he always breaks his promises. Kudos to him for that.
ReplyDeleteIn one of the posts you mentioned about blind followers/supporters. Today, I was reading a post on conclave where this guy got an Adam which had broken screen and it was not turning on. But he has been brainwashed and though his Adam is a brick but he loves it and "thinks" this is the only issue else this piece of crap is the best thing after -- whatever.
Another thing I have noticed that there is only person answering the queries on conclave. Earlier, it was Shahid, now it is Michelle. I'm just wondering may be Rohan is using different alias and everyone has left NI. "Itunes" support lol.
May be Rohan is busy coding, fixing bugs alone the reason behind missing deadline again.
You may want to re-read what I wrote and what you wrote. You're making so sense - it is perfectly valid for someone to speculate with the information available to them. If one takes your route
ReplyDelete1. People should stop researching & investing in stocks because, after all, it's based on speculation of earnings of a company
2. Companies should stop expanding to new products and markets because it's based on a speculation of growth
3. Judges should convicting anyone because they weren't witness to a crime
and so on... I don't need to be there to make an observation.
To the point of 'something big brewing that we don't know about', There are things that are possible, and things that are probable.
Is it possible that NI is working behind the scenes on a blockbuster multi-million $ tablet co-branding with Amazon to sell 1 million tablets in the next 2 months? Possible. Is it probable - perhaps not.
Is it possible that Rohan will don a space suit and go to the moon in the next 6 months? Of course it's *possible*, but can I say it's probable? Guess not.
There's a user on a forum who keeps saying 'buyers be aware', well, that awareness comes from variety of sources, including mine. So here's a food for thought for you - grow a backbone and take a stand, and stop being worried about being right all the time because you aren't privy to all the facts. Yes, I could be proved wrong in 2 weeks when NI release the mother of all updates and turns it into the greatest tablet experience in the universe, and that point I will come back here and say I was wrong. Being 'quiet' has never pushed change.
(Oh, BTW, you're here on my blog, commenting on me. But there it is - your comment, approved, and my response. What I haven't done is what Notion Ink's been doing quietly, censoring/moderating out critical posts. )
My only thought is that if NI were to try to sell Adams using Amazon, they would have to use the Marketplace, not let Amazon handle logistics. There is just no way that NI could satisfy the minimum order requirement needed for Amazon to carry and handle shipment of a product.
ReplyDeleteStill, given the abysmal track record for shipping to so-called preorders, I doubt the company would even pass the Merchant requirements. Same thing for eBay.