Apple continues to reign supreme with the iPad, while competing tablet makers’ have failed in their attempts to topple the company. With the Amazon Kindle Fire launch, many are wondering just how the newest tablet entry will impact the popular tablet segment. The Kindle Fire is showing signs of great promise: affordable price points, strong pre-orders, and the company’s efforts to understand new consumer behavior. Amazon is in a position make significant strides where other non-Apple tablet OEMs have failed, because the online retail giant is taking two important pages from Apple’s playbook: don’t be a first-mover, and aim for the ecosystem—hardware + content + easy delivery—not just the device.

In the world of portable consumer electronics, one could easily argue that Apple has achieved a portion of its success by bypassing the first-mover advantage and letting the competition hash out the initial playing field. Apple stood back and watched others attempt to launch an MP3 player, a portable video player, and a multimedia phone to consumers who didn’t understand the bells and whistles of the new technology. But most importantly, these consumers couldn’t comprehend the new usage models for each market segment. Then, in stepped Apple with shiny new products that blew away the competition. And with each Apple device launch, consumers defined the new usage models that have now become indispensable to everyday life.

With regard to the tablet market, Amazon has followed this strategy in a similar fashion. While the company has offered the Kindle lineup for quite some time, traditional Kindles are true e-readers. The Amazon Kindle Fire is clearly aimed at the tablet audience—18 months after Apple helped define what tablet owners not only want, but need. Now Amazon is in a position to compete against the iPad as tablets transition from a nice-to-have to a need-to-have device.

Still, the “device” is only half the story. It’s glaringly obvious that Apple devices are sleek and sexy. But the real story is that the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are actually cool-looking vehicles designed to deliver a rich, multimedia experience tied directly to Apple services that generate recurring revenues, which are far more lucrative than revenues driven by one-off device sales.

Apple created a closed ecosystem consisting of hardware, content, and seamless delivery. With its full Kindle lineup (e-readers and the Fire), Amazon is set up to deliver the same type of ecosystem. The company will continue to hone its hardware design capabilities as a way to tie its customers into a complete Amazon ecosystem consisting of hardware, services, and seamless delivery going forward.

Choices that Amazon has made indicate this emphasis. For example, unlike Barnes & Noble’s nook, the Kindle Fire does not have expandable memory, which is consistent with their emphasis on providing cloud-based storage and services. The availability of Kindle Fire at competing retailers such as Best Buy is further indication that Amazon’s true goal is to bring more users into its ecosystem.

Apple and now Amazon have made it clear that it’s no longer about “devices.” Success is about being able to deliver a comprehensive solution of services and applications that are optimized for a wide range of devices, tablets included.