Just as Amazon’s Kindle is going all gangbusters at the start of the holiday season, the launch of perhaps its most-formidable rival is getting off to a rocky start.

The Nook, an e-reader from bookseller giant Barnes & Noble, was hailed as an improvement on the Kindle when it was unveiled in October. It supports the open Epub file format, and has a colour, touch-screen navigation interface in addition to an E-Ink screen.

But Barnes & Noble looks to have been blindsided by high demand for the Nook. A week before Thanksgiving the company said the Nook would be sold-out through the holidays.

Now comes news that while shipments will begin today, as scheduled, the Nook will not be available in Barnes & Noble stores until December 7.

“Because we are prioritizing pre-orders, we will have demo units available only in our highest-volume stores on Dec. 7, and we expect to have a very limited quantity available for sale in those stores at a date to be determined,” the company said in a blog post.

As we reported earlier, both Barnes & Noble and Sony appear to have brought their new e-readers to market prematurely.

“Supply is short because the companies rushed the announcement of these two products, and the reality is they’re not ready for holiday primetime,” said Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester Research. “The manufacturing process takes several months and Sony and Barnes & Noble have run out of time.”

Tags: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, e-readers, Kindle, nook, Sony

November 30, 2009 11:50pm in Consumer Electronics | Comment