Local high school hands out 2,100 Kindles to students

[Quake1028]

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/sep...clearwater-hi/

So that's why there was a shortage .

[jaxx6166]

I'm surprised and slightly optimistic about this one. It will probably make the news in palm beach county this afternoon if it hasn't already within the past week or so. Its nice to see that the people posting comments on tbo are just as ignorant as those posting on the post. Gotta love freedom of speech

[dmacmart]

Wow I would have loved that in high school! Textbooks are heavy. And you remember your Kindle, you've remembered ALL your homework. But ...

Each cost $177.60, a discount from the roughly $200 customers would pay, said John Just, assistant superintendent for management information systems for the Pinellas school system.

Couldn't they have gotten the wifi only version which would have been a whole lot cheaper? Multiply the $50 difference by 2200 Kindles. They could have wifi in the school to guarantee availability to all.

And couldn't they have negotiated better volume pricing?

[Quake1028]

Yeah, I wondered about the same things you did. $189 to $177.60 for buying 2,200 of the things isn't really a great deal.

[DiamondDave]

Wouldn't something that could read epub make more sense, given that these kids could then check out library books?

Still, it's a great step forward.

[Tomsk]

Originally Posted by Quake1028

Yeah, I wondered about the same things you did. $189 to $177.60 for buying 2,200 of the things isn't really a great deal.

Isn't there a sales tax?
$189 + 7% = $202.23
I'm British and know about the various US state sales tax, but not how it applies to items purchase over the internet.

The district, working with Amazon, can track each Kindle and shut it down if it's stolen or shows up at a pawn shop, or appears on e-Bay, Just said

I guess this is why they wanted the 3G version.
Also, I thought Amazon didn't disable stolen Kindles when consumers reported them stolen?

[mrscoach]

Tomsk

Schools are considered government entities for most taxes, so do not pay those taxes. They are funded by taxes, so it would just meaning shifting money around, anyway.

As for Amazon not disabling for individual owners, I'm sure there are exceptions for schools, because they are loaning out the devices. This isn't the first school we have heard of doing this, or about to do this, so it is probably something Amazon promotes as an added value.

[bmatt]

Originally Posted by Tomsk

Isn't there a sales tax?
$189 + 7% = $202.23
I'm British and know about the various US state sales tax, but not how it applies to items purchase over the internet.




I guess this is why they wanted the 3G version.
Also, I thought Amazon didn't disable stolen Kindles when consumers reported them stolen?

Yes, it depends. Sales tax is a state tax, so if the business doesn't have a presence in the state the devices were purchased in, no sales tax is charged. They have debated finding some way to apply sales tax on internet purchases where the business has no presence, and maybe eventually the local state sales tax will apply. Some states don't charge sales tax as well, like Delaware, and sales taxes are variable. Where I live it is 6% in the state and my local county, if I purchase an item there, tacks on an extra 1%. Amazon doesn't have presence here, so I can buy from there without paying sales tax.

[Ken Irving]

Hate to be a wet blanket, but they should have gotten a way, way better price than a $23/unit discount for such a large purchase, especially considering the fact that their textbook purchases are now a captive of Amazon. They not only paid too much for the reading devices, but now can't shop around for the best price on books. A good idea, but a very bad deal. Not the first time this has been done of course, as there was the Canadian high school that did this with Sony (http://www.photoxels.com/high-school...ks-for-ebooks/) last year.

[neilmarr]

Wonder how many of those will pop up at eBay and how many students will be prime targets for a street corner mugging on the way home from school. And doesn't the education authority realise they're buying into a closed-source monopoly? Very anti-American, I would have thought, chaps. Neil

[SpiderMatt]

A lot of people don't realize how fragile eink screens are. I can see this ending badly for some kids.

[DiamondDave]

Originally Posted by Ken Irving

Hate to be a wet blanket, but they should have gotten a way, way better price than a $23/unit discount for such a large purchase, especially considering the fact that their textbook purchases are now a captive of Amazon. They not only paid too much for the reading devices, but now can't shop around for the best price on books. A good idea, but a very bad deal. Not the first time this has been done of course, as there was the Canadian high school that did this with Sony (http://www.photoxels.com/high-school...ks-for-ebooks/) last year.

At least the Canadian school bought into a reader that's more library and Google-friendly. Of course, the intent could be to limit the kids to just textbooks, in which case, it doesn't matter.

[DiamondDave]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Wonder how many of those will pop up at eBay and how many students will be prime targets for a street corner mugging on the way home from school. And doesn't the education authority realise they're buying into a closed-source monopoly? Very anti-American, I would have thought, chaps. Neil

It's very American. It's called the "sweetheart deal" and we're great at it, especially in government!

[jessicalynn]

I think this is a great idea. I remember having serious back aches from carrying all my text books around in high school. Some of the comments on the article are indeed very ignorant.
However, one caveat-I remember learning that the physical act of highlighting while you're reading actually helps you learn. I wonder if the effect would be the same pressing the buttons? I would love to eventually see something bigger for textbooks, maybe the size of the kindle dx, with a touch sensitive screen that would allow students to "highlight" with some kind of special high lighter, as well as physically take notes on their page with a stylus.

[meromana]

There's no doubt that the darn textbooks are heavy, and the Kindle will be nice for that reason, but beyond that, this does indeed sound like a very bad deal for the school system and us taxpayers, and not just because they overpaid.

They jumped in way too early. Before too many years, specialty providers will pop up with cheaper, but heavier and more durable ereaders, and they will come with a package of e-textbooks built in. Right now, the school system will certainly NOT be saving money with this move: they have tied themselves into a single (read: monopolistic) supplier; there isn't a vast selection of e-ready textbooks to choose from yet, so they'll have to buy whatever they can get; they won't be saving any money on the books if they can't easily re-use them for the next 10 years, as they do now with paper books; and they will surely lose a lot of the units and never get their money back. Do we really imagine the school will be able to collect when kids lose, break, or sell the units? Yeah, right.

Somebody made out like a bandit on this one...