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Wow, what a swirl of good-news/bad-news last week for the media tablets aimed at the ereader market. As it turns out, the roller-coaster ride continues this week.

comScore reported that the Kindle Fire from Amazon generated far more Internet activity in February than any other Android media tablet. Then a few days later, Microsoft dumped $300 million into a Barnes & Noble ebook venture, a move spurred in part by the success of the bookseller’s media tablet, the Nook Tablet.

I wrote a column explaining why the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet, the first- and third-highest selling Android tablets in 2011, respectfully are so successful — and what that means for hardware vendors who want to make it in the tablet market.

And then the roller coaster began hurtling earthward.

Target confirmed rumors that it is tossing Amazon’s Kindle line-up out of its chain of department stores. Target was coy as to exactlywhy, though fellow writer Ed Oswald offered up a few possible explanations.

I suspect it has to do with Target’s new pilot program that will put Apple boutiques in 25 of its stores. (That’s possibility #2 in Ed’s article if you’re scoring at home.) Apple knows what powerful draw its products generate and exploits that in its relationships up and down the supply chain. It’s why Verizon invested millions two-and-a-half years ago to elevate Android: to level the playing field in the smartphone market by giving iPhone a legitimate competitor. It’s also why Verizon is looking to prop up Windows Phone during this year’s selling season.

And then late last week, Joe Wilcox raised another possible reason: that Target dumped the Kindle Fire because it’s no longer selling. He pointed to first-quarter data from IDC that estimated sharply lower shipments of the Kindle Fire in the year’s first quarter — 700,000 units down from 4.7 million.

I find it difficult to believe that Target, a retailer well accustomed to consumer buying patterns, would toss Amazon due to a seasonal letdown in sales. As it turns out, the IDC report, while technically accurate, is a bit misleading.

Kindle Fire shipments, or deliveries by Amazon to thousands of stores as well as to Amazon’s own warehouses, fell off a cliff, not actual sales. That’s normal for the year’s first quarter — Apple’s quarter-on-quarter shipments also dipped, as did total tablet shipments, according to IDC. You would expect Kindle Fire shipments to fall far faster than the industry during that time, because the fourth quarter was the Kindle Fire’s inaugural quarter, so retailers had to build up their holiday stock from scratch.

Sales, actual purchases of Kindle Fires by consumers, were seasonally strong in the first quarter, according to NPD. Consumers bought about 1.8 million Kindle Fires in the first quarter, compared to 3.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. That’s seasonally down, yes. But the Kindle Fire still sold “pretty darn well” in the first quarter, says NPD’s Stephen Baker.

So let’s see if we can’t get Kindle Fire news back on an even keel. One thing’s for sure: all this perceptual yo-yo’ing doesn’t change the fact that the Kindle Fire is a well-designed and well-positioned tablet that is successful because it sidesteps the iPad rather than challenging it head-on, like so many other wannabe’s in this market.

On the other hand, the Kindle Fire’s success may be why Apple has painted a target on its back — and why it isn’t welcome back at Target.

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Original post:http://betanews.com/2012/05/08/kindle-fire-sales-are-still-hot/. Reprinted with permission.

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The best-designed Android tablets you can buy today aren’t the sleekest or the sexiest. They’re not the most powerful. And they don’t boast the largest or brightest displays. What they do have, however, are sales. The tablets? The Kindle Fire from Amazon and Barnes & Nobles’ Nook Tablet.

On a runway awash with thin, pretty models, it’s easy to overlook this pair of plain Janes. But don’t. They are two of the top three largest-selling Android tablets on the market. And their formula should serve as a model for how to succeed in this market if you’re a supplier that’s lacking a throng of breathless fanatics aching to snap up anything you sell.

According to comScore data for the US market, more Kindle Fires were in use than all other Android tablets combined at the end of February, just its third month on the market. comScore says that 54.4 percent of all Android devices accessing the Internet were Kindle Fires.

In the same breath in which comScore lauds theKindle Fire, though, it snubs the Nook Tablet. You see, comScore excluded Nook Tablet from the study, classifying it instead as an e-reader rather than a tablet.

Microsoft, however, knows a good thing when it sees it. The software giant today invested $300 million in Barnes & Nobles’  ebook spin-off, Newco.

Regardless of whether Microsoft or comScore understand, both Barnes & Noble and Amazon know they hold the keys to this market: that a successful tablet is built around what I call an “anchor” app. Yes, you can load other apps, just as you would with a general-purpose tablet. But when it’s optimized for a popular app, it’s more compelling than one that’s being marketed by its form factor.

Think about it this way: would you be more or less likely to consider purchasing a Swiss Army Pocket-able Lump?

The Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet were two of the four best-selling tablets last year. And they weren’t even available until the fall. The other two — the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the iPad — were launched in 2010.

Savvy CE manufactures have taken a lesson from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Watch for them to unleash tablets designed around other anchor apps beginning late this year. A few of the more attractive anchors:

1. Gaming. I would argue that Sony’s PlayStation Vita is a gaming-centric tablet. It’s got a browser, Facebook, Twitter and access to an online store where you can go get other apps. Just last week, in fact, Sony added Skype to its app store.

I’d be shocked, by the way,  if Microsoft wasn’t hard at work on an Xbox-inspired tablet to unveil after Windows 8 is on the market.

2. Video. I’m shocked that I still see people on planes who are watching movies on portable DVD players. Who is buying these dinosaurs? Regardless, there is obviously a ready-made opportunity for a well-designed video tablet to entice these consumers out of the disc age.

3. Personal Navigation. The window for this is limited, as the market for single-function GPS devices is already beginning to contract. Nevertheless, it is an established device market that a GPS-centric tablet could tap into and quickly exploit.

Needless to say, designing a tablet around a popular app isn’t the only ingredient for success. The Vita stands testament to that. As well, there will continue to be a market for sleek and shiny general-purpose tablets. But as Amazon and Barnes & Noble have shown, it’s much easier to coax consumers to pull out their wallets if your tablet does impeccably well what it is they want to do.

Remember: you can call it a knife and still tuck a toothpick and a fish scaler inside.

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Original post: http://betanews.com/2012/04/30/kindle-fire-nook-tablet-are-better-by-design/. Reprinted with permission.