Can't get no Nook (til next year)

By Jake Widman
Saturday, 21 November 2009 06:33

Mobility

Barnes & Noble's announced that its new Nook e-reader is out of stock until 2010. The next projected shipping date is early next January.

Bookselling giant Barnes & Noble introduced the Nook, a dual-screen e-book reader running on Android, back in October.

At the time, the company said it was taking pre-orders for the device and that it would ship at the end of November.

Well, here it is more than a week before the end of November, and the Nook webpage announces that it's out of stock already. Orders placed today are expected to ship January 4.

The Nook's main rival, Amazon's Kindle, suffered similar shortages in its first two holiday season, in 2007 and 2008. At the time, some suggested that the shortages were manipulated in order to create at least the appearance of demand.

The Nook is also the subject of a lawsuit filed against Barnes and Noble by Spring Design, which plans to have its own dual-screen e-reader out by the end of the year.

The Nook shortage may provide an opportunity for Spring's Alex to make some holiday sales. Otherwise, shoppers set on the Nook can pick up a "holiday certificate" to let their gift recipients know it's coming.