Oct 7, 2009 Kindle UK, Canada Update – On the 19th of October Kindle 2 international will be released. It’s $279 – after custom duties and postage Kindle UK is $345 which is 215 pounds or so.
Amazon says that it’s working on Kindle Canada – however its not currently available. Also, the new Kindle has got a funny name – Kindle US & International Wireless, Latest Generation. Why not just call it Kindle 2?
Here are two job postings that indicate that the Kindle is going international soon – most probably sometime in 2009 itself.
First, a Global Lead, Kindle Periodicals Development position (posted on March 26th, 2009, 2pm). The descriptions says -
Here is an opportunity to lead the worldwide growth of the periodical publisher partnerships for the Kindle Newspaper, Magazine, and Blog content store
Next, they have Global Lead, Kindle Wireless Business Development position (posted March 26th, 2009 11am). The description -
Here is an opportunity to lead the worldwide growth of the wireless carrier and device partnerships that enable the Kindle Whispernet service. Specific responsibilities include identifying, prioritizing, contacting, negotiating, and developing handset device and carrier relationships.
Kindle for BlackBerry, Kindle for Nokia?
Note that the second position is responsible for handset device relationships (and not just carrier relationships). Perhaps Kindle for Nokia and Kindle for BlackBerry are being developed too?
Further evidence - there’s a Kindle for iPhone developer position with these requirements -
open-source technologies (Spring, Hibernate) and Platforms (J2ME, BREW, Windows Mobile, IE, Safari, FireFox).
Both BlackBerry and Nokia (who’re opening their App Store Ovi in May) support J2ME apps (Apple promotes Objective C). Spring and Hibernate are both Java frameworks.
What more do these Kindle Job Postings indicate?
The date the jobs were put up (March end 2009) and the titles (Global Lead) indicate that Amazon is building up whole international teams for both expanding content availability and negotiating wireless contracts for Whispernet. This indicates -
- There are almost certainly multiple countries involved – so we might see Kindle in Canada, UK and Europe. Perhaps even worldwide.
- Something happened recently (i.e. in the last 2-3 weeks) that made Amazon create these positions. Perhaps they finally got a Canada or UK wireless contract done.
Note that in the past (2nd half of 2008) there have been jobs that were more development oriented (asking for experience working with WiFi hardware). The nature of the current job postings indicate that an international version of the Kindle (or perhaps Kindle Canada or Kindle UK) is much closer to release. My money would be on a release of Kindle 2 in Canada or UK in the second half of 2009.
Filed under: availability Tagged: | kindle in canada, kindle in uk
[...] evidence that Kindle 2 is going international grows [...]
[...] kindle ‘global leads’ in march [...]
Well, surprise. Wireless connectivity for my Kindle 2, purchased in the US, has been working here in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, Canada, for the past three days. I don’t know when this started. Prior to that I was out of Canada for six weeks. After reentering Canada on Thursday, September 3, 2009, I turned the thing on while waiting at the ferry terminal at Tsawassen, south of Vancouver, and I got a connection. Strong signal, too, so not likely a fringe effect from south of the border. Maybe Amazon is running some preliminary tests? I keep wondering if it will go away at some point.
And today (October 8, 2009, the day after Amazon announced its international Kindle program, which does not include Canada), the wireless connectivity in Victoria went away. Interesting. Apparently it was some kind of test. Hope it resumes sometime soon.
The Kindle North American coverage map clearly shows wireless service in Victoria, Vancouver, Kamloops, etc. I’m guessing that, since my Kindle was purchased in the US for US only service, I would need to buy one of the new ones for US and International service to access the wireless network in Canada as of today (October 8, 2009). And it’s not exactly free – costs a buck to download a book, in addition to the book price. Rats.
wow – i hope they extend it to vancouver soon.
If you have a Kindle, I’d suggest trying it. It seems to take longer to connect than in the US, almost like your cell phone when it’s roaming. So you need patience. It works great (or at least as well as it ever does) once it hooks up, though.