Amazon expected to announce new Kindle Fire today

Aiming to bolster its presence in the tablet computer market and boost sales of digital goodies such as e-books and movies, Amazon is expected to unveil a brand new Kindle Fire today.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is expected to make the announcement in a former airplane hangar in Santa Monica, CA.

The first Kindle Fire, announced about 9 months ago in the very same airplane hangar, has managed to capture 22% of the tablet market in spite of competition from Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Google’s Nexus, and many Windows based tablets from Samsung and Asus, to name a few. Not technically a direct competitor to iPad (yet), which is larger, faster and has a more robust set of features and apps, the Kindle is the cornerstone in Amazon’s strategy of selling much lower priced tablets at very small margins to boost sales of digital items from its own online store.

The original Kindle Fire is half the price of the cheapest iPad, which retails for $399, but the 7 inch device has a smaller screen than the iPad, lacks a camera and only connects to the Internet over Wi-Fi. Thus, its position as a cheap, less robust, entry level tablet could be knocked down a few rungs if the rumor mill proves true and Apple announces a smaller, cheaper version of its market ruling iPad in October.