Vodafone plans Amazon Kindle rival in Germany
July 5, 2009 by Bernd Kling
The Amazon e-reader is delayed in Europe’s biggest book market because leading wireless carriers Vodafone and T-Mobile asked for excessively high service fees for the Kindle’s wireless connection. The carriers may have had their own reasons to stall the negotiations.
Vodafone will offer its own e-reader for books, newspapers and magazines in coming months. Prototypes are already being tested say “people familiar with the project”. The device is even greater than Kindle DX and should be especially suited for reading magazines and newspapers. A report by German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche says that Vodafone will most likely distribute the device in partnership with newspaper and magazine publishers.
At the same time Berlin startup Wizpac prepares the launch of its own e-reader device named Txtr. It is reported this company already has an agreement with a leading wireless carrier – which may very well be T-Mobile.
(bk)
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