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Growth in eReader Market
Big Software Plans for Amazon's Kindle?
Amazon.com's buying and hiring signal that many more Kindle apps may be on the way—plus software to put Amazon books on other mobile devices
By Olga Kharif
Giant online retailer Amazon.com may be plotting a broader foray into software for smartphones.
The company already offers a handful of mobile applications. One lets users of Apple's (AAPL) iPhone read electronic books on their screens. Another lets BlackBerry users snap photos of products in stores, then find similar items on Amazon. Those may be just the start of Amazon's (AMZN) mobile efforts.
In the past several months the online retailer has been expanding its team of mobile engineers. It's also acquiring companies whose products and knowhow could help Amazon turn out new software for cell phones. The goals may be to sell new programs that can run on Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, make Amazon's digital titles available for more devices, and ring up revenue from sales of mobile applications, say several software executives and analysts.
Amazon won't comment on its mobile-software ambitions. "We don't discuss future plans or developments," spokeswoman Cinthia Portugal says in an e-mail.
Read more at www.businessweek.com
