When the Amazon management team gather to look over the company’s performance in 2009, they will have good reason to feel content – but not smug. It’s been a great year for the internet retail giant – and a lot of the credit must go to the Amazon Kindle reader.

The Kindle 2 launched in February of 2009. It was widely viewed as a big step forward. Amazon had clearly paid close attention to customer feedback regarding the original Kindle, launched in 2007. Wireless connectivity and the vast library of Kindle books were retained and more rapid page changes, prolonged battery life and increased storage capacity were among the improvements which were introduced.

Best selling author, Stephen King wrote a special Kindle book to mark the launch and the Kindle 2 quickly became the “must have” gadget amid a blaze of publicity.

Just a few months later, in June of 2009, Amazon released the Kindle DX. This had a large display and was intended to cater for readers of newspapers, magazines and academic textbooks. A little surprisingly perhaps, it was the conservative world of academic publishing that helped to gain the DX a lot of publicity.

The academic community was quick to realise the potential opportunities which the Kindle offered. Not only would it be very much faster to update textbooks but interactive education – pop quizzes and tests for instance – would be possible. Academic bodies would not only save money as a result of using digital books, but they would be more environmentally friendly also – an important factor for such institutions who have both budgets and environmental targets to meet nowadays.

As well as establishing partnerships with a number of universities and colleges, Amazon benefited from a lot of publicity generated by political bodies such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – both of whom waxed lyrical on the educational potential of e-book readers in general and the Amazon Kindle in particular.

However, as rosy as things were looking for Amazon, there were indications that trouble was looming. Other manufacturers, having watched Amazon develop the e-book reader market, were now becoming aware of the massive potential of this nascent sector. An impressive list of competitors, including companies like Microsoft, Apple, Barnes and Noble and Sony, wanted their share – and they all had their own readers in development.

It’s a compliment to Amazon – albeit a backhanded one that almost every ebook reader in development which shows the slightest potential is immediately dubbed the “Kindle Killer”. The problem is that, at the moment, in spite of all the development work by the competition, Amazon is still the only show in town. Sony’s Daily Edition reader and the Nook from Barnes and Noble have both had their release dates put back. In fact, it looks ever more likely that the most probable source of the long awaited Kindle Killer might be Amazon itself. The Kindle 4 is the most likely challenger. Can we hope to see it sometime next year?