Credit: PC World

As Apple gears up towards releasing the iPad next month, its competitors are scrambling to come up with their own solutions to keep up with the company. We already know that Amazon is working on Kindle Touch (though no release date has been announced). The company is not stopping there. Amazon has no intention of going head to head against Apple alone. That’s why its forming partnership with other Apple competitors to mount a more serious challenge against Apple’s new creation. It seems Dell and Amazon have joined hands to bring Amazon Kindle to Dell Mini 5 (an Android tablet that aims to take on the iPad). Dell’s tablet is expected to have access to Amazon books, mp3 content, and videos.

Every Kindle fan has been wondering how Amazon is going to respond to Apple iPad. The iPad is not an e-book reader and does not take advantage of E-Ink screen technology. But the device has the marketing power of Apple behind it. The fact that there will be thousands of apps available for the device in iTunes does not hurt either. We already know that Amazon intends to release Kindle Touch in the near future but is it all a little too late?

Amazon has real reasons to be nervous about Apple iPad. Apple intends to manufacture 5 million units in the first half of 2010, and it could pass Kindle’s sales mark in just 3 months. While it may take Apple more than 3 months to beat Kindle numbers (3 million), the iPad is widely expected to become the next king of the hill in the e-reader market. The iPad may not be the best e-book reader on the market, but that won’t matter as Apple has positioned the device as “cool” and “revolutionary.” The curiosity factor is certainly there for many consumers.

Apple iPad is coming to a store near you on April 3rd. In fact, you can start ordering your iPad on March 12th. But another device that has generated quite a lot of buzz on the Internet is Microsoft Courier. This is a mythical device that we have heard about for a few months with Microsoft giving us an ounce of a hint that it intends to release such a device. It seems Microsoft is getting serious about the Courier as it readies to ship the device in June 2010. But will it look anything like the device in Courier’s concept presentations?

Throughout the past couple of years, we heard about lots of devices that were expected to put Amazon Kindle to sword and ends its dominance in the e-book market. Of course, none has come close to getting it done. Wouldn’t it be ironic to have a device that hasn’t even been released to the market beat Amazon Kindle so handily in a head to head match-up? That’s what Apple iPad has done according to the latest report by ChangeWave. According to Investors.com, 40% of e-book readers fans are more likely to buy an iPad. That easily beats the crowd that will stick by Amazon Kindle (28%).

Credit: Investors.com

Perhaps it’s more alarming for Amazon to see that 27% of people who own an e-reader currently would have gone with Apple iPad had it been available for sale. This isn’t good news for B&N and other e-book readers (e.g. Plastic Logic’s Que Reader) either.

We have heard about the concept of book 2.0 for years now. The good old books that most of us have grown up with are anything but interactive. While that wouldn’t be a problem all by itself, there are certain situations where an interactive book can provide more value to its readers than a regular book. Take kids books for example. Wouldn’t it be nice if kids could interact with their books to have more fun and learn things more effectively? The future is all about book 2.0. We are talking about interactive, dynamic content and even videos getting packaged with e-books. It’s no secret that Amazon Kindle and other top e-Readers are currently incapable of handling such dynamic content. The focus of those devices is to provide a better reading experience to their users and not necessarily handle dynamic content. Apple plans to change all that with the iPad. The iBooks is going to be unlike any other e-book store on the market. As publishers have suggested in the past, many dynamic books are expected to make their way to the store, giving iPad owners plenty of titles to choose from.

Credit: AsusTek

AsusTek is one of the most electronics manufacturers in the world. The company is responsible for lots of innovative products, including CULVs, netbooks, and all in one PCs in the past few years. But it is not stopping there. It’s going after the e-book reader market as well. The ASUS DR-900 is the company’s latest effort to get its challenge in this market off the ground. The device is shiny, super thin, and support WiFi and 3G connections.

The videos of the device from CeBIT 2010 have already surfaced on the internet though it’s tough to figure out all the device’s features from these videos: