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Gadgets Amazon Kindle Now Available Globally
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - October 7, 2009 9:48 AM

24 comment(s) - last by graaam.. on Oct 13 at 8:06 AM

Amazon cuts price of Kindle in U.S. to $259

The Amazon Kindle has proven to be a very popular product for Amazon.com and is one of the online giants top selling gadgets. The eBook reader made big waves in the market and quickly became more desired than established eReaders on the market from companies like Sony.

The big draw to the Kindle was the massive Amazon eBook store and the fact that the device ships with AT&T 3G internet connectivity for free allowing the user to download books from practically anywhere. Since the launch of the original Kindle, which was followed by the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX, the devices have only been available in America.

Amazon announced today that it was now offering the Kindle 2 to consumers around the world. For Kindle fans in the U.S., the launch of the device internationally means a price cut at home. Amazon cut the price of the Kindle to $259 after dropping the price for the eReader in July to $299. Abroad the Kindle 2 will sell for the equivalent of $279.

Reuters reports that Amazon sees the Kindle as a huge growth driver for the company and the device now has over 200,000 books available for download.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told Reuters, "Our vision for Kindle is every book ever printed, in print or out of print, in every language, all available within 60 seconds." He added, "That's a multi-decade vision."

When asked if Amazon might eventually turn the Kindle into a device more like a tablet computer with a touch screen and the ability to surf the net and send/receive mail, Bezos reiterated that Amazon rejects compromise in the Kindle. The company doesn't want tech that will affect the core reading capability of the device by reducing readability or using too much power.

Amazon is making strides to bring its digital bookstore to devices other than the Kindle and has offered an app for the iPhone/iPod touch that allows users to read books from its bookstores. Bezos said, "We want you to read your Kindle books on laptops and smartphones, anything with an installed base." Bezos also said that Amazon was in principal not against offering its bookstore on competing devices like the ones from Sony, but it would only offer the store to devices with a large install base.

Amazon is expecting a lot from the Kindle over the holiday season and analysts are expecting big sales from the eReader market in general. Forrester Research estimates that 3 million eReaders will be sold in the U.S. in 2009; earlier estimates pegged the number at 2 million. By the end of 2010, eReaders are expected to have cumulative sales of about 10 million units.

Amazon doesn't provide numbers for sales of its Kindle, but analysts predict that the device has about 60% of the eReader market and that the device may make up as much as 8.4% of Amazon's total revenue. That would put sales of the Kindle at about $420 million with gross profits of $35 million.

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Not For Me

By dark matter on 10/7/2009 11:15:58 AM , Rating: 3

I live in the UK, already we have too many CCTV cameras, council officials brimming with power (snooping in your bins, etc).

I would never trust any organisation (government or otherwise) that can remove information remotely from a device. Would you give someone a key to your front door and allow them to take any book from your bookshelf they don't agree with?

Coincidental the books remotely removed were Orwells 1984, or maybe a warning from the man himself?

Either way, the kindle is not for me.

RE: Not For Me

By Morphine06 on 10/7/2009 11:43:28 AM , Rating: 1

While I agree that censorship is wrong, that's not what happened with 1984. They mishandled a problem with what is essentially DRM.

I trust they wouldn't censor my library by removing books they don't think I should be reading, but I do think they have the power/motivation to refer authorities to locations of people with certain reading habits. That might include the governments flagged book list, illegally downloaded content, or illegal content. (kiddie porn)

Either way, I don't really care.

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RE: Not For Me

By dark matter on 10/7/2009 11:59:00 AM , Rating: 3

Give them an inch...

Supposedly the anti-terror laws were introduced to stop terrorists. Now they are used to make sure you don't lie about the catchment area you live in so you can get your kid to the only decent school in the area.

Or to make sure you are not putting the wrong type of rubbish in the wheelie bin, rubbish that can be recycled. Or leaving your bin out too long in the morning. Hardly terrorist activities, yet that is what we were promised it was for. Hmmm.

Slippery slope?

And it doesn't matter what the reasoning was behind the 1984 incident, all I know is they can take books off me that I have previously purchased. Your excuse for it is no excuse.

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RE: Not For Me

By Cypherdude1 on 10/7/2009 6:14:03 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I live in the UK, already we have too many CCTV cameras, council officials brimming with power (snooping in your bins, etc).

I agree that Amazon's ability to remotely remove books from their Kindle is a little too Orwellian for me. I don't think Americans know what a "bin" is. It was ironic that one of the books Amazon removed was 1984. LOL. I'll bet the Amazon execs must've been cringing when they discovered this.

BTW, the Kindle price reduction is for the original, smaller Kindle, not the larger, newer Kindle DX. The newer Kindle DX still costs a ridiculous $489! Even the "larger" Kindle DX is only 9.7", not large enough for the bigger nonfiction books. I would never pay that. I could buy a fully equipped Laptop for $700!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015TCML0

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RE: Not For Me

By Oregonian2 on 10/9/2009 1:35:38 PM , Rating: 2

The screen on a laptop absolutely stinks compared to the eInk display on a Kindle when used for an ebook application.

eInk is high contrast, black on white (like books) and very importantly takes no power whatsoever other than when the display is changing. If you don't mind having your laptop continuously being plugged into a wall main, then no problem perhaps. But for an eBook it's important that it's both on the light-weight side AND the battery lasts "forever". An LCD laptop does neither (with display continuously visible, the case in an eBook application). A kindle does both.

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RE: Not For Me

By jcrane2 on 10/12/2009 1:42:26 PM , Rating: 2

"The screen on a laptop absolutely stinks compared to the eInk display on a Kindle when used for an ebook application."

This may be true. I looked at a Sony reader the other day in the store. It had only a 6 " screen, but I was surprised at how readable it was.

I have other definitions of "readability" that I see fulfilled by a paper book, that I can't see being fulfilled in an electronic book.

But, when I read a book, I like to underline text, make comments in the margins, read it on the toilet, scan portions of the text and save them in documents on my computer so that I can search them and quote them at a later time.

When I read a technical book, I am reading in several sections and the same time, and have several passages bookmarked. I often have several books open and spread before me on my desk. Would I have to buy several E-readers in order to accomplish this? I have several thousand books of various subjects on my bookcases. How would I pull them down one by one and search through them? What if I can't remember the title, but I know it was a Red book published by Wrox, and not an Orange book published by Microsoft Press? Or, I remember that I had it on a certain place on a certain shelf. I assume these E-books are indexed, but how can you index several thousand books and store them with all this "extra", human information.

What if I am giving a speech or a lecture, and I have several books under my arm with one or more bookmarks in each?

I could probably list more items, but we can't forget the smell of an old book, or the smell of a new book, for that matter. Can Kindle duplicate that? Perhaps a used book smells like the previous owner.

I think that we have already solved the problem of having a small, user-friendly device, and that is a book.

And, I am saying this as a very technical person. Technology has its place, as does some of the old tried and true methods, and I suppose one needs to read real books in order to tell the difference.

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RE: Not For Me

By Oregonian2 on 10/9/2009 1:23:33 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
And it doesn't matter what the reasoning was behind the 1984 incident, all I know is they can take books off me that I have previously purchased. Your excuse for it is no excuse

You don't think it significant that the 1984 books they were selling were illegally being sold?

In any case, they've promised that they'll not fix things in that way anymore.

PS - One can backup all the books on a Kindle over the USB cable, and even those who had 1984 deleted could have it reloaded if they had a local backup copy.

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RE: Not For Me

By Bateluer on 10/7/2009 11:57:23 AM , Rating: 2

You don't care that Amazon can, at any time, for any reason, remotely delete content from your Kindle? As the OP starter pointed out, this is akin to giving a complete stranger the keys to your front door and letting them come into your home and doing whatever they wish.

If that doesn't bother you, you might care when the Kindle 3 arrives and you have to repurchase all your books again. Or if you don't buy that Kindle 3, and support is terminated for your current Kindle and you have to repurchase all your books again.

The DRM and restrictions on the Kindle are a serious flaw and one that should keep every free thinking human being form purchasing one.

I'm a big fan of the ebook readers though and I definitely them as the future of the printed word, but so long as they come with the anti-consumer DRM, nobody should be buying these things.

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RE: Not For Me

By jwilliams4200 on 10/7/2009 1:42:40 PM , Rating: 2

Amazon cannot delete content from your Kindle if you turn of the wireless (Whispernet). You can always transfer files between your computer and the Kindle by USB if you are that worried about it.

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RE: Not For Me

By Morphine06 on 10/7/2009 3:13:12 PM , Rating: 2

That's right, I don't care. Like I said, they mishandled fixing their mistake with the digital rights of a book they sold. They did not remove the book because they felt people shouldn't be reading it. Your comment is based on a lot of ifs. They have never censored anyone's reading. The people who bought 1984, have 1984.

It sounds to me the issues you are concerned with have nothing to with the hardware of the Kindle itself, rather the download service offered by Amazon which utilizes DRM. You can bypass the DRM by not supporting the download service and move DRM-free files over via USB.

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RE: Not For Me

By jwilliams4200 on 10/7/2009 7:16:04 PM , Rating: 3

You don't have to limit yourself to DRM-free files if you avoid wireless, as long as you have an Internet-connected computer.

When you buy a Kindle book from Amazon, you can choose, under "Deliver To", instead of delivering to your Kindle, "Transfer via computer". Then the book file will be downloaded to your computer. Then you hook your Kindle up to the computer with the USB cable and transfer the book file to the Kindle.

As long as the wireless on the Kindle remains off, Amazon will never have a chance to delete anything on your Kindle.

Another option for those who want to use wireless, but are worried about Amazon deleting books, is to back up all your book files, via USB, to a computer. Then if Amazon ever deletes any of your books, you can turn off wireless on the Kindle and restore the deleted book(s) from your computer.

Personally, I'm not worried about Amazon deleting any of my books in the future. The public outcry from the 1984 debacle was so great that Amazon would never risk doing that again.

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RE: Not For Me

By graaam on 10/13/2009 8:06:07 AM , Rating: 2

http://games.graaam.com/
http://chat.graaam.com/
http://www.graaam.com/

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come on competition! :)

By The0ne on 10/7/2009 10:34:19 AM , Rating: 2

I can't wait for this technology to take off and provides us with much better readers. Just takes some competition to get things moving along...and at a speedier pace :)

So here I am cheering for competition from Apple, MS, Sony, Asus and any other company out there that's willing to jump on the marketshare.

RE: come on competition! :)

By Morphine06 on 10/7/2009 11:10:07 AM , Rating: 4

If that competition can enter the market with color I would be sold. That's the only reason I can't bring myself to buy one. Of course I could speed up that process by buying a B&W one. The color would hit the market the next day for sure. It's like me washing my car, guaranteed rain the next day.

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RE: come on competition! :)

By crystal clear on 10/7/2009 11:25:14 AM , Rating: 1

On the way-

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) will be the manufacturing partner for an upcoming tablet PC device from Apple, according to market sources. The device is expected to hit the market in the first quarter of 2010, with initial shipments from Foxconn being in the 300,000-400,000 range, the sources said.

The device will have a 10.6-inch display, and the sources speculated that perhaps Foxconn could secure panels from its subsidiary Innolux Display.

The sources indicated they believe the tablet PC features will focus more on e-book functionality rather than music, and that based on Apple's marketing strategy, long battery life, quick Internet connectivity and an easy-to-use user interface will be key features of the device.

The sources also expect players such as Hewlett-Packard (HP) to follow suit with their own similar products in the second quarter of 2010.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20091007PD225.html

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RE: come on competition! :)

By Bateluer on 10/7/2009 2:51:23 PM , Rating: 5

An Apple tablet, 300 dollars worth of hardware, 3000 dollar price tag. And sadly, sheep will buy it in droves.

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RE: come on competition! :)

By Boze on 10/7/2009 6:43:50 PM , Rating: 2

I doubt it actually... after everyone's seen what Courier is capable of, I couldn't imagine anyone except only the 'trendiest' fools still using the Apple tablet... or kids who don't need to get any sort of productive work done.

Meanwhile, the business world is gonna eat Courier up like a giant Kate Beckinsale sundae. And students will likely eat up Courier too, especially if they can get their books on it... imagine being able to overlay your notes on your textbooks without actually having to drag all those heavy effers around...

I am tellin' yah guys, I could cause lethal blunt force trauma with my Calculus book (God bless you though James Stewart).

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RE: come on competition! :)

By Boze on 10/7/2009 6:45:52 PM , Rating: 2

Oh yeah, and I will also never buy a Kindle as long as Amazon.com can delete the books I've already purchased and downloaded. And no, I don't care that I get a refund of my purchase price when they do that.

Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million have never sent someone to my house and taken my copies of Faulkner off the shelf while leaving me $12.95 on the bookcase.

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RE: come on competition! :)

By Oregonian2 on 10/9/2009 1:41:41 PM , Rating: 2

Doesn't mean they couldn't do it though.

:-) :-)

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RE: come on competition! :)

By Oregonian2 on 10/9/2009 1:44:58 PM , Rating: 2

Just be sure that the display is an eInk one. LCD's take a lot of power when lighted (one lights it continously for hours and hours at en when eBook'ing) while an eInk display takes zero power except when the page changes. IOW - with an eInk display with its page visible and being read, it's consuming zero battery power, very very unlike an LCD based machine.

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Not in Canada

By Devo2007 on 10/7/2009 12:41:41 PM , Rating: 2

The Kindle is available globally, but Amazon seems to have forgotten those across the border.

Yup, when trying to get information on Canadian availability, I get this message:

Unfortunately, we are currently unable to ship Kindles or offer Kindle content in Canada. We are working to make Kindle available to our Canadian customers as soon as possible.

If you go to www.amazon.co.uk, there's an announcement of it on the main page, but that you have to order it from www.amazon.com - that's where I saw the message for Canadians.