Amazon will soon have a UK launch date finalized for the Kindle, according to British mobile phone trade publication, Mobile Today. Although its not currently clear when this date will be, the launch should occur in time for the holiday season.
Of course, just because Kindle has been slow to leave the US doesn’t mean that Amazon’s competitors haven’t already cracked the European market. Part of Amazon’s strategy will now have to be winning away users who already have experience with other eReaders.
What may be the Kindle’s largest selling point is also the reason for the delay: Whispernet. The reason Kindle isn’t yet sold in the UK is because problems arose in finding a wireless carrier (Orange and Vodafone, 2 major cellular companies in Great Britain, are working on their own wireless-enabled eReaders with Vodaphone planning to release as soon as this fall). Qualcomm has taken over negotiations for Amazon, and has apparently found a solution to the wireless problem.
One question on my mind is how the UK Kindle’s will work in the US and vice versa. Most likely it will not be possible to use wireless connectivity outside your own country. In order to make this a reality Amazon will need ot install universal wireless chipset that would support both CDMA (Sprint) and GSM (european operators). This will incurr extra cost while not making a great difference for 99% of the users. I may be wrong though. We’ll see…
I just hope that we in the U.S. will be able to buy Kindle books from Amazon.uk. They have a nice selection of books that aren’t available in the U.S.
Most likely you will not unless you buy UK version of Kindle via separate account and download books via PC (and still you’ll not be able to read them on your “US” Kindle).
In different countries different publishers hold rights to the same book. When you buy book from amazon.co.uk commission goes to UK publisher. Most likely some publisher hold the rights for the same book in the US. Since really you are buying the book for US market, US publisher will get pissed off and likely to sue Amazon.
Unfortunately this is the same stupid issue when DRM-ed MP3 from iTunes will not play on Zune and the other way around.
This system has been in place for centuries and it will take some time to adapt it to global market.
Does this mean I would not be able to use the UK version here in Italy??
Any update on release date yet?
Only one more week to wait? I would love to see a EU provider come onboard. Then maybe somebody will come up with a 3G mod where we can use our own SIM card with our own data plan. Some of us with iPhones who have dual SIM cards and unlimited data would love that!!! Then we get Whispernet like functionality for no incremental cost to our current mobile plan in our home market!
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/01/kindle-coming-to-the-uk-in-october-amazon-might-just-tell-us-ne/
Personally, I’m looking forward to the time when hardly any books are published on paper, and the entire world moves to the more enviromentally friendly form of ebooks for most publications, and anyone, anywhere has the option of buying any book from whatever source is available in the world.