Amazon’s Jeff Bezeos is understandably proud of the Android-based Kindle Fire, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think. He’s quick to highlight how the branded device is a world away from other Android tablets on the market, and more like Apple’s iPad. The end-to-end business model, where consumers depend on one company for hardware, software and content, is just what the Kindle Fire needs to put it above the crowded tablet space, at least according to Amazon.

Bezos goes so far as to say that he doesn’t consider the Kindle Fire a tablet at all. “We think of Kindle Fire as an end-to-end service,” he told an interviewer, saying that the Fire is a wrapper meant to consume a wide array of digital media, from books and magazine to video, apps and music, all while staying constantly connected to the cloud.

It’s hard not to think of Apple’s strictly-enforced walled garden of hardware and software when one hears about an end-to-end service. And while that may sound like a sour note to the Android faithful, there’s no denying that it’s allowed Apple to dominate the tablet market, with the iPad holding on to an 82% market share even as Android tablets become more and more advanced.

Amazon may even have an advantage over Apple in the long-run, since the heavily-customized Kindle Fire relies almost exclusively on cloud services for a la cart and subscription content. As more and more consumers get access to ubiquitous broadband internet, services like Amazon Instant Video will become more and more popular. Shoppers sure seem to think so: the Kindle Fire jumped to the top of Amazon’s product list as soon as pre-orders were made available.

[device id=1688] [via Seeking Alpha]