Though the Amazon Kindle isn't expected to completely replace school text books or business meetings anytime soon, the company made strides Wednesday by introducing the Whispercast app.
Amazon has stated that they have been testing Kindles on hundreds of students in the past couple of years by selling Kindles at a reduced price to schools. Their results so far confirm that the Kindle could eventually serve as a replacement tool for textbooks.
The Whispercast app would allow schools to manage multiple Kindle devices from one online area according to Reuters. Teachers would be able to set up personal accounts for specific classes or grade levels and arrange them into more than one group.
From there, teachers or administrators can limit what students can or can't do on the device like allowing them to only view a specific textbook and blocking school restricted web sites.
The teacher would also have control over what gets purchased from the Kindle to prevent students from making purchases under another account.
The app was created to help enhance the way classes are conducted as well as in an effort to increase sale numbers for the Kindle. While it may take a while for schools and businesses to make the switch to using just Kindles, Amazon believes it could be within a couple of years.
"We want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to own a Kindle device. Any time we can make that easier, we do that," said Jay Marine, vice president of Kindle product management to Reuters. "And we have a particular mission to increase reading, especially among kids."
Amazon is stressing to schools that another key factor they should consider when thinking about purchasing Kindles is that they would eliminate the amount of books students would have to carry throughout the day. This could prevent physical problems that many students develop over carry many bulky books all-day long from class to class.
Many businesses could make the switch to using Kindles at work as well. Just like teachers are about to control what students can and can't do on the Kindle, bosses could run meetings by using Kindles to make sure everyone is on the same page with what is being discussed according to Reuters. Likewise, employees wouldn't be able to access restricted websites that they shouldn't be going to throughout the day as well.
Amazon will now focus on getting Whispercast to work with apps that run on Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet to try and get customers of both devices to use the app.
If Amazon gets its wish however, the company would face competition with the iPad for classroom dominance. In 2012 so far, Apple has said that the company has sold close to 1 million iPads to schools in the U.S.
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