• Fortune, Tuesday, June 29, 2010 1:06 PM

Faced with mounting pressure from Apple, Amazon is betting its success on new markets and ubiquitous device compatibility, Fortune learns in a wide-ranging interview with the company's distinctive CEO Jeff Bezos. And, so far, it seems to be working. Last quarter, Amazon reported a profit of $299 million -- up 68% from a year ago.

Still, what does Bezos make of Apple's iPad? "It's really a different product category," he tells Fortune. "The Kindle is for readers." Regarding Amazon's ebook platform-agnostic approach, the CEO says "Our strategy with the ebookstore is 'buy once, read everywhere' ... You have this whole multitude of devices and whatever's most convenient for you at the moment." Beyond ebooks and ebookstores, Bezos wants people to think of Amazon as "earth's most customer-centric company, and that we work backwards from customers."

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