Update: Wow. Amazon has confirmed a June 10th kindle dx release date at the dx product page. If it follows the pattern of the Kindle 2 it means that the dx ship date will be a day or two before (or in the worst case same day or a day or two later) -
Kindle DX Ship Date is June 10th, 2009
Amazon seems to really like the ‘keep everything secret’ philosophy. Mr. Bezos has said that they will NEVER reveal Kindle sales numbers. And they’ve also kept the Kindle DX Release Date secret.
There are a few chinks appearing though -
- Customer service reps are telling customers enquiring about Kindle DX shipping date that it’s July 6th.
- Some users are saying that their Kindle for iPhone apps are showing their kindle dx ship date varying between July 6th and July 24th.
Why keep Kindle DX Release Date secret?
Perhaps (most likely) – Amazon needs to see orders and then decide on how many to produce. Its an expensive, new technology. They’ve already been burnt by not having enough Kindle 1s in stock. They probably don’t want to repeat that and neither do they want to produce too many.
Plus announcing that DX is 2 months away on May 6th would have actually reduced preorders.
Perhaps (Conspiracy Theory) – The more buzz and anticipation the more successful the DX will be. There’s something in NLP called leaving Open Loops -
start a story and leave it without revealing the ending – your audience goes into a heightened state of anticipation and get more involved in the story. We need to ‘close the loop’ in our head. Its the reason that we tend not to like movies with open endings and why its particularly galling when there’s a sequel in the works.
On the other hand, we love stories and movies that open a lot of loops and then close them all at the end.
It would make sense to use the same concept in product launches – Steve Jobs uses it exceptionally well (it also explains why Apple is so maniacal about product leaks).
Open loops are also why keeping Kindle sales numbers secret has benefits beyond competitive advantage (especially with journalists and bloggers that tend to obsess over closing open loops).
Is Kindle DX Release Date really July 6th?
My time machine isn’t working at the moment so I can’t confirm July 6th.
On a more serious note – it seems pretty reasonable given that so many people are seeing July 6th ship dates and hearing it from customer service representatives.
The May end release rumors are obviously wrong. Early June (around the time of Apple’s big conference and potential big announcements, not to mention Palm Pre) wouldn’t make sense.
If Amazon were ready to ship a month after the May 6th announcement they would have let people know to encourage DX preorders.
It really does seem that Amazon opened Kindle DX preorders to get an idea of the interest and figure out how many Kindle DXes to manufacture. July 6th makes perfect sense – 2 months or so to get the first batch produced and shipped to the US.
My money’s on a last week of June or first week of July Kindle DX release date.
Filed under: availability, kindle dx Tagged: | kindle dx release date
