Could Amazon Offer Free Kindles to Prime Members?

I recently had a chance to play around with the Onyx BOOX T68. It is an e-book reader with Android 4.0 onboard. While it is a wonderful device, it only takes a few minutes of using it to realize how much cooler tablets are. E-book readers like that are great if you only read books. But tablets and smartphones are much more in demand. Recent moves in the market seems to suggest that e-book readers could be on their way out.

Going back to Amazon, the company has not been releasing many new, exciting Kindle e-readers lately. The focus of the company seems to be on tablets and smartphones. It will soon get in the wearable business too. Where does that leave the Kindle? James McQuivey, principal analyst at Forrester seems to think that Amazon will eventually give Kindles as a thank you gift to Prime members who renew:

Those 7 million will be the people who read more than two books a week … tablets and phones have already begun the process of making e-readers a ‘nice to have.

That would actually be a brilliant move. How soon that will happen is anybody’s guess. E-readers are not completely dead. But we need more innovation to stay excited about these tiny devices.