New Sony Reader May Miss Christmas for Some

The Sony Daily Edition Reader might seem like a fine holiday gift. Unlike the other Sony e-reading devices sold in stores now, it has a spacious 7-inch touchscreen and wireless access to Sony’s online bookstore and newsstand.

The only problem: Sony, which is in a tight race with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s new Nook in the growing market for reading devices and e-books, can’t guarantee that buyers will receive the “Daily” in time for the holiday.

Sony will begin taking preorders on its site Wednesday for the $399 Daily. But it will tell buyers that the device will ship between December 18th and the first week of January. And the devices won’t reach physical stores until January.

The company is being cautious, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division, who cited a higher-than-expected number of people asking Sony to notify them when it started selling the device. “We may be able to hit it. I just don’t want to promise someone a gift that arrives after Christmas,” he said. “We may be giving up sales by saying that, but we are in it for the long haul.”

Previously, the company had said the device would be available in December, in time for the holidays.

Mr. Haber revealed the adjusted timetable during a conversation in which he touched on other aspects of Sony’s growing e-book business. He said the presence of other Reader models in 9,000 retail stores, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart outlets, should give Sony an advantage over rivals during the holidays. Over the summer, for the first time in the three-year history of the business, a majority of Readers were sold in physical stores, rather than online, Mr. Haber said.

He also said Sony was working on Reader applications for the iPhone and for phones that run Google’s Android operating system, but declined to disclose when that software would be ready. (In Wednesday’s paper, we take a look at the spread of reading applications for smartphones and their potential impact on the e-reader market.)

On one recent hot topic, the widely adopted $9.99 price for e-book best-sellers, Mr. Haber noted that this price was set by the “competitive landscape” (read: Amazon). Retailers like Amazon and Sony subsidize this price and lose money on these sales. Publishers hate the price, because they believe they will ultimately have to bear some of the burden, which could decimate their profits.

Mr. Haber expressed surprise that some publishers are delaying some e-book titles over the dispute. “Publishers are worried about a combination of things, the pricing of books, and that the shift to digital reading is happening so quickly. They are trying to slow it down. To me it’s ridiculous that they are waiting. Consumers clearly don’t want them to wait.”