Update: Thanks to Jack for the scoop/rumor on a March 2009 wireless Sony Reader. That would be big news, and way earlier than I’d expected.
Verizon Wireless is planning to help Kindle’s competitors negate one of the Kindle’s big advantages i.e. wireless downloads. Ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2009), Tony Lewis of Verizon spoke with Reuters and detailed Verizon’s plans. Here’s a snippet -
“Competitors to the Kindle are out there and ready,” said Lewis, who declined to name the company’s e-reader partners. “In 2009 I’d expect them to come to the market.”
There was a huge wireless spectrum auction battle between Google and Verizon and other carriers, and Google had managed to get part of the spectrum open for all wireless devices and applications. Verizon is saying that they’re going to open that part of the spectrum to not only phones, but also ereaders.
This is actually not the biggest Verizon news this week – Verizon will also make its 5.9 billion acquisition of AllTel Wireless official on January 9th, and become the largest wireless carrier in the US with 78 million subscribers.
Which means – The single largest wireless carrier in the US is opening up part of its wireless spectrum for ANY ereader (or for that matter any ereading application on any phone) to use for wirelessly downloading books and media.
Amazon still has the biggest range of ebooks to offer and a lot of other advantages – however, if Verizon starts offering instant downloads to Sony and other Kindle competitors, things are going to become very interesting.
Filed under: kindle Tagged: | kindle competitor, verizon kindle
FWIW a Sony salesperson recently told me “off the record” that Sony will have a wireless eReader in March 2009.