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Customers who placed early orders for Barnes & Noble's Nook e-readers will get them in time for Christmas, the company said Wednesday, despite its statements to the contrary a few days ago.

Barnes & Noble: "Just kidding on that latest delay."

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

Got whiplash yet?

On Friday, the retailer told some customers by e-mail that it aimed to get the device to customers by Thursday, Christmas Eve. Those who did not get the gadget in time would get an e-mail notification on Wednesday with a $100 Barnes & Noble online gift certificate, the company said.

It appears those gift certificates won't be showing up in in-boxes, however, as the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that all B&N's Nook shipping orders will in fact be fulfilled. "We're pleased to tell our customers today that we're shipping out all our orders in time," Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, told the paper.

Various shifts in plans have plagued the Nook since B&N officially entered the burgeoning e-reader market in late October. At that point, customers placing early preorders were told they could expect the Nook to ship by the end of November.

In November, however, the bookseller pushed that date back, telling preorder customers they could expect shipment by December 11. The company declined to say how many e-readers had been preordered.

Then, later in November 20, B&N announced on its Web site that its e-reader, a challenger to Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader, is officially sold out through 2009 and customers ordering after that date wouldn't receive the device until January 4.

Some customers who placed early orders for Barnes & Noble's Nook may not see their e-reader arrive in time for Christmas.

Barnes & Noble told some customers by e-mail Friday that though their shipment "has been slightly delayed," the company is aiming to get their device to them by Thursday, which is Christmas Eve. If it's not shipped in time, Barnes & Noble promises "with our sincerest apologies, we will send you an e-mail notification on December 23rd with a $100 Barnes&Noble.com Online Gift Certificate." The e-mail also said if the Nook doesn't get there by Christmas Eve, the company will ship the device overnight so customers receive it by December 29.

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

The Consumerist posted a copy of the e-mail Saturday that one of its readers received.

Responding to a request for comment Saturday, Barnes & Noble spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said:

"The vast majority of customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date should receive their devices in time for the holidays. We are working very hard to keep up with the demand and to get all nook orders out the door and to customers on or before Dec. 24. Unfortunately, there may be a very small percentage of customers who may not receive their nooks before the holiday. We communicated with this handful of customers yesterday, offering our sincere apologies and providing them with the following: a nook holiday gift certificate so that they have something to wrap and give if it was bought as a gift as well as a bn.com gift certificate that can be used online. Any customer who has not yet received their device but whose ship date prior to the holidays has changed in anyway was notified yesterday of updated timing."

Barnes & Noble's e-reader made its debut at a launch event in New York on October 20. The $259 device was touted as the first Android-powered e-reader. A few weeks later, Barnes & Noble said initial demand was so great that it had to start telling customers not to expect delivery until December 11. Originally, early orders were supposed to ship by the end of November.

Toward the end of November, the Barnes & Noble Web site declared the Nook was out of stock. Back then, Keating told CNET the company was "on track to ship devices that were preordered prior to today by the holidays," and that the November 20 update on availability applied only to orders placed starting then. The Nook's arrival in Barnes & Noble stores for sale or demonstration purposes was also expected to be delayed a week because of high demand. The company said it was giving priority to customers who had ordered the device before November 20.

On Saturday, the Barnes & Noble Web site showed the expected ship date for new orders is February 1.

(Credit: Plastic Logic)

Plastic Logic, the maker of the much anticipated, vaguely understood Que e-reader, will finally announce availability, pricing, and design at CES 2010.

Although its business division is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., Plastic Logic's technologies were born in Cambridge, England. The research team spent 10 years finding ways to use plastic transistors for the e-reader screen instead of silicon.

Professors at the Cavendish Labs in Cambridge eventually came up with a flexible e-reader, one that can't shatter, unlike the Kindle's and Nook's glass screens.

Manufacturing is commissioned to a company in Dresden, Germany, and for all we know, there may be thousands of Ques waiting to be shipped.

Plastic Logic, which will distribute its e-reader in Barnes & Noble stores, doesn't appear to view the Nook or Kindle as competition. The company is targeting business professionals who may benefit from an e-reader with an interactive platform offering the likes of digital sticky notes, annotations, and drawings.

Next up for Plastic Logic is a full color e-reader, backed by ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

When Barnes & Noble unveiled the Nook, the first Android-powered e-book reader, a lot of people were excited, because it appeared to offer some key competitive advantages over Amazon's Kindle e-reader.

First and foremost, while the Nook features the same 6-inch E-ink screen (600x800 pixels; 16 shades of gray) as the Kindle, it includes a separate, capacitive, color touch screen (144 x 480 pixels) that allows you to navigate content and use a virtual keyboard for typing searches and annotations. Furthermore, on top of its free AT&T 3G wireless connection, the Nook packs in Wi-Fi connectivity and a memory expansion slot; you get 2GB of internal memory, but can add up to an additional 16GB via the microSD card slot. And finally, Barnes & Noble offers an e-book-lending option (for participating titles) and the capability to browse the full text of e-books on your Nook if you're in a Barnes & Noble brick-and-mortar store (the latter feature is due to launch in early 2010). Unfortunately, both the lending and in-store browsing features come with some significant restrictions.

Caveats notwithstanding, those features are nice extras, but the big questions are: how much of a difference do they really make in the overall user experience, and are they enough to push the Nook to the top of the e-book reader heap? Alas, the answer, you'll soon find out, isn't as clear cut as it might seem.

Read the full review.

Barnes & Noble Nook e-book reader--photos

(Credit: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California)

Start-up Spring Design has been denied an injunction to halt Barnes & Noble from selling its Nook e-reader, according to court documents.

The company had requested the injunction, in addition to monetary damages, as part of a recent lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose, Calif. The suit charges that the bookseller misappropriated Spring Design trade secrets in the design of its Nook, which launched October 20, the day after Spring Design announced its Alex e-book reader.

The court's decision (PDF), based on a Monday hearing, denies Spring Design's request for a preliminary injunction, but states that a halt to sales could still be appropriate if the plaintiff ultimately prevails. The court also says it will expedite the pre-trial process to accommodate Spring's request for an early hearing.

Barnes & Noble does not comment on litigation as a matter of policy, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday. CNET has contacted Spring Design for a comment and is waiting to hear back.

The Nook, like Spring Design's Alex (which has yet to be released), combines a color touch screen with an e-ink display, and both readers use the Android operating system. In its lawsuit, Spring Design said it showed its plans for the Alex to Barnes & Noble, which showed interest in the product and gave no indication it was working on a similar device.

So sales of the Nook will move forward for now, though not without hitches of a non-legal sort.

Updated at 6:38 p.m. PST with comment from Barnes & Noble spokesperson.

If you're planning to head into a Barnes & Noble this week to get your hands on a Nook, put your plans on hold. Barnes & Noble said Sunday that it won't be featuring the e-readers in stores for sale or demonstration until December 7 due to excess demand for the device.

"A very limited supply, along with demo units, will be available in our highest-volume stores only, beginning December 7," Mary Ellen Keating, Barnes & Noble's senior vice president of corporate communications and public affairs, told CNET in an e-mail. The bookseller had originally hoped to have a limited number of the much-anticipated e-reader in some stores on Monday.

You're going to have to wait a little longer than expected to see one of these displays in person.

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

The week delay comes because the bookseller is making it a priority to deliver the $259 Nook to customers who ordered the device before November 20, Keating said, adding that the reader is starting to ship this week.

This isn't the first time eager Nook seekers have gotten disappointing news. When B&N officially entered the burgeoning e-reader market in late October, customers placing early preorders were told they could expect the Nook to ship by the end of November.

Earlier this month, however, the bookseller pushed that date back, telling preorder customers they could expect shipment by December 11. The company declined to say how many e-readers had been preordered.

Then, on November 20, B&N announced on its Web site that its e-reader, a challenger to Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader, is officially sold out through 2009 and customers ordering after that date wouldn't receive the device until January 4.

"The hottest holiday gift is out of stock," a message at the top of the page reads. "Order the Nook today to be first in line for the new year."

As my colleague David Carnoy has noted, the Nook delays could be good news for Amazon, which should have plenty of its e-readers available (B&N responded to this prediction by noting that it created Nook holiday gift certificates that can be wrapped and given to recipients). We'll have to wait and see how the end-of-year numbers shake out.

(Credit: Ditto Book)

Though Amazon and Barnes and Noble are grabbing headlines with e-readers aimed at consumers, Ditto Book--a CES 2010 exhibitor--is marketing its device for niche markets.

The $249 e-reader doesn't compete with Nook and Kindle specifications, as it is not wireless, has a 6-inch screen in four shades of gray, and doesn't support the standard ePub format yet.

Its focus is on customization; companies interested in ordering the e-reader in bulk can add a logo, brand name, color, and welcome screen. A unique option is to load the e-readers with bundled content.

Ditto is a subsidiary of Macrotron Systems, a Silicon Valley company that offers design, engineering, and manufacturing services. By targeting corporations, nonprofits, and possibly education agencies, the company might be able to stand alongside its larger competitors.

The device is also available to consumers, but customization requires a 250-unit minimum. According to business developer Hentry Jebasingam, Ditto Book's goal is to support many formats, including ePub within the next few months.

If you were interested in buying the Barnes & Noble Nook as a holiday gift, strike it off your list. The e-reader is now officially sold out through 2009, according to the B&N Web site.

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

"The hottest holiday gift is out of stock," a message at the top of the page reads. "Order the Nook today to be first in line for the new year."

If this sounds familiar, it's because last year Amazon had a similar message on its site when it stock ran out of the Kindle. However, in the case of the Nook, the company hasn't shipped a single unit yet, and it's a little unclear what day it actually will. (We've yet to receive word when we'll get our review sample).

The New York Times' Bits blog has a quote from Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research, explaining what a lot of us already knew: that Barnes & Noble had rushed to announce its product to compete with Amazon and it wasn't really quite ready to begin selling its device this year--at least not in huge quantities.

"Even without specific problems in the supply chain, the manufacturing process takes time for new products--it could be three months from the time they place the orders with their factories until they actually ship," Epps said.

This is probably good news for Amazon, which should have plenty of its e-readers available. But it's worth noting that if you do want to hold out for a Nook, you shouldn't have to wait too long. The B&N Web site says that if you order a unit today, you'll get it shipped to you by January 4.

Comments?

Update: After reading our piece, Barnes & Noble spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating told us she hoped folks won't cross the Nook off their holiday lists, which is why the company created a "holiday gift certificate that can be wrapped and given to the recipient."

She also noted that Barnes and Noble is "on track to ship devices that were preordered prior to today by the holidays," and that today's update only affects orders made beginning today. Also, she said that Barnes & Noble expects to have a limited stock of devices available in its highest-volume stores during the holiday season.

Barnes & Noble Nook e-book reader--photos

The Nook

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

Demand is so strong for the Nook that Barnes & Noble has begun telling new customers not to expect delivery of the soon-to-be-released e-reader until the second week of December.

When the nation's largest bookseller unveiled the device in October, customers placing early preorders were told they could expect the Nook to ship by the end of November; customers placing preorders now are being told they can expect shipment by December 11. The new shipping date was first reported by Brighthand.com.

A Barnes & Noble representative confirmed the December 11 shipping date but disputed the characterization of the new shipping date as a delay.

"Like with any hot, new consumer device, the sooner you order it, the sooner you receive it," said Mary Ellen Keating, senior vice president of corporate communications and public affairs. "We had high expectations for the Nook and couldn't be happier" with preorder sales. However, she declined to say how many of the e-readers had been preordered.

"We are working hard to meet demand for the holidays," she said.

Earlier this month, start-up Spring Design filed a lawsuit against Barnes & Noble, alleging the bookseller misappropriated its trade secrets in the design of the Nook. Spring Design had announced its Alex e-reader just days before Barnes & Noble formally unveiled the Nook. Both e-readers use the Android operating system and combine an e-ink screen with a color touch screen. It seeks both monetary damages and a halt to sales of the Nook.

The $259 Nook, a challenger to Amazon.com's Kindle, will join an expected boom in e-reader sales. In a report released last month, Forrester Research raised its 2009 forecast for e-reader sales in the United States to 3 million units from its previous prediction of 2 million sales. Forrester also expects Amazon's Kindle to command about 60 percent of the e-reader market in 2009, compared with 35 percent for Sony's Reader.