Kindle coming to Germany this fall (yes, it's a rumor)

[Alexander Turcic]

Don't place your bets just yet, but rumors are beginning to swirl about Amazon's Kindle going overseas - to Germany! Georg Meck of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reports:

Im Herbst soll es so weit sein, ist in der Verlagsszene zu hören. Ein großer Auftritt Amazons zur Frankfurter Buchmesse Anfang Oktober wird vermutet. Der Geschäftsführer von Amazon in Deutschland, Ralf Kleber, blockt ab: „Wir wissen, dass viele Kunden auch außerhalb Amerikas daran interessiert sind, den Kindle zu kaufen, und dementsprechend wollen wir den Reader auch in anderen Ländern zur Verfügung stellen.“ Zum Preis, den er für den Kindle hierzulande verlangen wird, sagt er natürlich kein Wort.

Article: Amazon kopiert Apple

For those whose German is a bit rusty, insiders in the publishing scene expect the Kindle to be introduced during the Frankfurt Book Fair (October 15-19). Amazon Germany doesn't directly comment other than to acknowledge that there is high demand for the Kindle outside the US and that therefore the company is participating a launch in other countries as well (without naming a price).

[Nate the great]

Isn't this what we heard last year?

[TadW]

Not exactly... last year we heard the Kindle was going to be introduced in Frankfurt. This time it's about a possible launch outside the US.

[stgben]

Is this at all related to the rumors of Kindle 2.0 being released this October? Would they skip releasing the first gen overseas if the second gen was due out in a matter of days/weeks/months?

[TomBolini]

mmmhhh... looks like they'll launch the Kindle 2.0 AND enter new markets in October...

[Alexander Turcic]

Maybe 2.0 will have the option to run with a SIM card or something like this.

I cannot imagine that Amazon will manage to get something like Whispernet working in Germany... telecos there are just too greedy. ;(

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stgben

Is this at all related to the rumors of Kindle 2.0 being released this October? Would they skip releasing the first gen overseas if the second gen was due out in a matter of days/weeks/months?

Just remember all the rumors we heard about Sony releasing overseas. Took them a bit of time to actually do it. So as far as Kindle 2.0 goes, I'd call that a wild rumor at present. I can see people waiting for 2.0 in October just to be disappointed.

[Argel]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Don't place your bets just yet, but rumors are beginning to swirl about Amazon's Kindle going overseas - to Germany!

If Germany gets the Kindle before the UK then it means war!

[tribble]

I would be very surprised if the Kindele hits germany in October. Too few german titles are available at the moment, and as far as i know, the publishers where not yet contacted by amazon. So i will wait aptiently till Octobre and see what happens

[mikecook]

Perhaps I will take a visit up to Frankfurt for a couple of days and see what happens first hand

Originally Posted by tribble

I would be very surprised if the Kindele hits germany in October. Too few german titles are available at the moment, and as far as i know, the publishers where not yet contacted by amazon...

You could be right there. Saying that though, it still surprises me at how much Germans read (books), at least compared to the UK and US!

I fully believe that when eBooks do take off here in Germany, they are going to be much bigger than in the UK or US (percentage wise - the U.S. has a population of 300M - double UK and DE combined!)

[CommanderROR]

OK, so now I'm getting my hopes up again...damn....

Tribble is right, there are very few titles available in German, but that would not matter to me, since I only read English books anyway...but it would matter to the majority of amazon.de customers.

However, if Amazon manages to release a moderately large Kindle library (of german books) then they might just be able to pull it off.

What I'm worried about however is this:

At the moment I buy Mobipocket Books from booksonboard.com and get good prices since I pay the $ price in € and save about 50-60% that way...the weak dollar really helps here, but if Amazon goes local here then they'll surely want to sell ebooks at $=€ prices over amazon.de and will probably not allow purchases from a german Kindle on amazon.com

Booksonboard and other sites would however still be an option, so there really isn't much to lose...

I'm getting carried away, it might be the same as last year where we all thought Amazon is going to launch the Kindle at the Frankfurt Book Fair and then they just quietly unveiled it a few weeks later...after we had all decided there was no kindle at all...^^

[SandySchwab]

Originally Posted by tribble

Too few german titles are available at the moment,

Not to mention too few people knowing what an e-book is!

Cheers,
Sandy

[hansl]

Originally Posted by SandySchwab

Not to mention too few people knowing what an e-book is!

Cheers,
Sandy

But we know how to deal with these tiny little black patterns they call alphabet

Would it only be a PRS-505 to arrive in Germany (best with a replaceable battery, of course) ...

BTW there are a lot of ebooks in German but not so many commercial ones. Besides the Project Gutenberg books and others there are "Digitale Bibliothek" CDs and DVDs (= digital library) including a very sophisticated ebook management software which includes nice search and navigation features and lets you export content (txt and print->pdf, not directly to an ebook format, at least up to version 4, the newest one I have). For books with pictures I have to stick to pdf, unfortunately. Two of their collection DVDs and you're done with your classics e-library (including arts) in nice editions. Nowadays you can also buy download versions of the CDs but I think it would be misleading to call this ebook download. No bestsellers though.

That's why I'm not interested in a Kindle at all. But maybe Amazon has enough market power to boost the ebook market in Germany, as they did with the online store business as such.

Recheers,
hansl

[Tali]

The issues, having to do with e-readers getting to other countries, seem a little complicated to me. What if I want books in my native tongue? Not to mention connectivity issues, and a specific solution for Macs. every time one of these companies will want to move into a different country they'll probably need a new local team.