[ZeBuddha]

Perhaps one of the reasons Sony is dragging it's feet with the Reader in Europe is the simple fact that most "new" techs take at least a year or two after appearing in the US before they become available around here - and I won't even bother comparing with Japan.

It happened with 3G phones. It happened with Blackberries (well, that type of "phone", I've never actually seen a blackberry here). It happened with digital photography. The only notable exceptions are when the tech is actually developed here (such as Philips & the CD back in the 80's).

Aside from that, of course, is the fact that with file-sharing being legal over here, there's much less of an incentive to use something such as the connect store. Thus, there's less of an incentive for Sony to bring out the Reader here.

On the other hand, the high book prices in Europe (compared to the US - and specially with the high euro/low dollar) should make it a rather lucrative market for selling ebooks... then again, that might be the very reason they're such sticklers about only US customers buying from the Connect store...


EDIT:

Oh, and as far as the Reader coming over to this side of the puddle, a quick email to Sony Spain resulted in a utter lack of knowledge, with only the faintest recognition that something such as the PRS500 even exists somewhere in the world. Ie. No plans for it coming to Spain, nor any knowledge of which countries it's available in, nor any info on warranty coverage, nor anything on whether it will become available anywhere in Europe at all. I think they might've not known what the PRS500 was and just tried to hide their ignorance altogether actually :P