People Are Searching For Kindle, But…

You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that Amazon Kindle has been in demand for the holiday season. Let’s not forget that it’s a cool device and the absolute best gift you can give to a serial reader. Amazon probably miscalculated the demand level for Kindle which is why it’s out of stock till early 2009. But that hasn’t stopped folks from searching for Kindle on Google.

TechCrunch has a story on this whole issue. The good folks at TechCrunch talk about how folks are searching for Kindle and Sony Reader. I agree with their assessment that Kindle is still the top dog in this niche. The problem is, folks are hoping to buy something and get it now, not 3 months from now. If I were Sony, I would use all this to my advantage. Think about it. How likely is it for folks to buy both the Sony Reader and the Kindle?

To be fair to Sony, they have been offering discounts for Christmas and the holiday season. But the trouble is, the Sony reader is just not good enough yet for folks to want to buy it, nor are iRex, Plastic, and other similar devices. Amazon has changed the game dramatically with their ebook reader, and Sony and other rivals have a lot of catching up to do.

Having said all this, it’s still astounding that Amazon underestimated the demand for the Kindle, especially for the holiday season. It could have sold more than 1M Kindles instead of 800K+ had they not dropped the ball here.

What’s your take: do you believe the Kindle being out of stock has hurt Amazon in a significant way?