Amazon – one of the leading e-commerce companies with solid credentials for offering consumer electronics, industrial and scientific supplies, books, music CDs, DVDs and much more, also launched their e-book reader, Kindle, in November 2007. The handheld device can now be purchased around the world for about $400. For people who need a device for reading books, magazines, blogs and newspapers etc, Amazon’s Kindle can offer a user-friendly and intimate reading experience.

Since 2007, Lab 126, Amazon’s subsidiary responsible for developing the product, has launched several versions of the popular e-book reader. In spite of facing stiff competition in the market from other tablet computers, Kindle has managed to hold its own due to the strength of its features and because of being reasonably priced.

Kindle allows users to browse the Internet through wireless connectivity. Users can purchase anything they want including books and novels from Amazon.com through their Kindle devices. They can have enough memory on the device to store a large number of books and read them whenever they want. Its linux based platform makes it extremely reliable. Kindle applications can also be downloaded for various versions of the Windows. Amazon has announced that a touchscreen version of Kindle is also in the works. In July 2011, Amazon also launched a program that allows students to rent books from three publishers for a fixed period.

The initial version of the Kindle had a number of limitations – the most important being the fact that it could support very few file formats. These included plain text files, mobipocket books and Amazon’s own azw format. The later versions, however, can also read some of the most popular file formats including pdf and prc etc, while other formats such as html, doc, docx, jpeg, gif, png and bmp can be converted to azw. However, some users are concerned that it still can’t read the international EPUB ebook standard format. Users have also complained about Kindle’s search functionality, which doesn’t always work too well.

Despite some of the problems, Kindle sales have been very strong. In December 2011, the company announced that it is now shipping more than 1 million kindles a week.