Amazon Kindle Coming To AT&T Retail Stores

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AT&T has officially announced the upcoming availability of the 3G equipped Kindle within their company owned retail stores. Though, the bigger portion of the story may not be in that AT&T is offering the Kindle, but in what it will do for potential customers.

“Amazon has without question pioneered the eReader space with Kindle, and it’s exciting to not only connect this device through our network, but now offer it in our stores to readers around the country,” said Glenn Lurie, president, emerging devices, AT&T.

First and foremost, the Kindle that will be available with AT&T is the 3G equipped model with the 6 inch Eink display and it will retain the standard $189 price point. In that respect, buying a Kindle from AT&T is not going to be any different as compared to buying direct from Amazon. Furthermore, the Kindle will begin appearing in stores as of March 6th.

But shifting away from the actual purchase for a moment and the good part here is that this means potential customers will now have another place to go and check out the device before committing their money in hopes they like it when it arrives.

Also worth noting is that this is going to be the first dedicated ereader to come available with AT&T and given that it should be interesting to see how well AT&T pushes it.

“As the first dedicated eReader offered in our stores, we are confident the Kindle will be an attractive addition to our in store connected devices lineup.”

Despite what appears to be some excitement on the part of AT&T, lets see how well placed the Kindle will be in terms of in-store display. And perhaps more important, will the sales staff on hand be knowledgeable about and will they recommend the product to customers. Seems to me there will be little incentive for an in-store employee to recommend and sell a Kindle.