We have to give credit to Amazon as the pioneer in dominating the ebook market, but core competency is about to change in the face of the NOOK and IPAD.  With the fierce competitors rising, the company made incremental technological upgrades to its Kindle. Screen resolutions, model thickness, text-to-speech features, and new navigation options are among the many features that have kept Amazon Kindle followers intrigued. Small feature changes, however, were only going to keep people interested so long. A big change needed to happen. The small but power features are the things that consumers are looking for nowaday.

Amazon recently acquired Touchco, a small company that specializes in touch screens may be the big change that the Amazon Kindle needed. The Amazon Kindle, with its current model, has positioned itself as the low-end e-reader. For the technology offered, Amazon had a choice: continue down the path of bargain shoppers looking for a cheap grayscale e-reader or upgrade to compete with the likes of Apple, who just introduced their full color, touch screen iPad.

Amazon Kindle was a head of the race, but the race is not over yet.  Considering the launch of the Kindle application store last month, it is no surprise that Amazon has once again chosen to make a move at the Nook and iPad. All along, Amazon has aimed at getting ahead of the market with the Amazon Kindle. Although it was not the first e-reader, it brought the marketing tools and resources necessary to get the paper-saving technology off the ground.

Ebook is an industry that will continue to grow and product features,  maintaining market shares, and customer loyalties is what Amazon should be focusing on in the upcoming years.