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Why Canada & New Zealand are Missing Kindle? Whispernet is not the Issue

I recently came across this blog entry from New Zeland. People are upsate and angry on amazon’s policy and not even explaining why these countries are missing from the amazon list. And finally found that Fiji got kindle, but there is no contract with any mobile carrier in Fiji. Then I checked the amazon website and found what’s written regading Fiji:

We are excited to now ship kindle to Fiji. Customers in Fiji will enjoy:

Download Books Instantly: You can download books to your computer and transfer them to your kindle via USB. kindle wireless is not currently available in your country.Large Selection: Over 170,000 English-language books to choose from; plus U.S. and international newspapers and magazines

Low Book Prices: New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases are $11.99, unless marked otherwise. You’ll also find many books for less – over 35,000 titles are priced under $5.99

After a little bit digging I found that out of 247 countries listed on the amazon website 170 (68.8%) countries got kindle, and for 86 (50%) of those countries amazon has the similar message like above. In other words, in 50% of the countries those who got kindle amazon doesn’t have any deal with any moble company, and they have to transfer the e-books to kindle via USB. It seems amazon has moved from it’s original position of “60 seconds download anytime anywhere” sloagn, but doesn’t clarify that. In other words, it’s no longer an wisperner or whispersync issue. Amazon is acknowleging a fierce competition coming up in e-book market. It just pre-empt the market leaving issues resolved for some important countries where it could generate more revenues than others. If the international copyright is that issue then it should be clearly explained by amazon.

The following table shows which countries got kindle, and whether whispernet is available in those countries:
[table id=3 /]

Posted by admin on Oct 9th, 2009 and filed under Opinion, eBooks, feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site

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