Which is it? $99 Amazon Kindle Fire or no?

Two major tech blogs seem to be warring today over Amazon rumors — to save problems I will not even bother naming or linking to either because it is honestly not even important to the whole story here. The subject in question is if Amazon has a $99 Kindle Fire HD in the works or not.

While there are sources claiming this product is in the pipeline, an Amazon spokesman claimed it “does not exist”. Honestly, while its hard to believe “unnamed” sources, it is also hard to believe Amazon would tip its hand on something like this, so we really are left to guess for ourselves and go with instinct.

Regardless of who is right and wrong in this little internet spat, there is one thing that I feel I can be certain of — Amazon can afford to do exactly this. The company has no need to profit from the hardware — it displays ads on the device, sells apps and sells music, movies and TV shows. The profit comes on the backend.

Honestly I have expected such a move for sometime, though I assumed it would come as a Kindle Fire discount offered to Amazon Prime customers. Prime already offers tremendous value to its users, and it does so because of the aforementioned backend.

So what does Amazon really have in store? Will there be a $99 Kindle Fire HD? It certainly would jump over the competition and could actually serve as a “game over” move against tablet rivals, including the Nexus 7. And it would do so all while using Google’s own mobile operating system as a weapon against them. Check mate.