It's fake.

Not enough component parts purchased to match the "sales".

The Kindle, like the Zune, is dying.

@1 knows nothing about component parts or sales of same. He can't even name a single component part of the Kindle or any other device.

I'm not sure where you're getting "upfront" to describe Apple with regard to their sales. The figures I've heard mostly come from analysts, not Apple.

And Reuters said last week "iPad sales disappoint": http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69…, though that disappointment is surely relative considering they're pushing five million a quarter. Still, that's only a third of iPhone sales.

But, you know, what's proving correct is that Kindle and iPad are not in the same market. They're different devices for different purposes. I still don't understand why Will acts as if so much is at stake in "defeating" Amazon, whatever that means. He doesn't.

Unless you're a stockholder, Amazon's not under any obligation to divulge sales numbers. I don't know why anyone without stake in the company (or stake in a competing company) would care anyway.

Have you ever visited the Seattle Amazon campus, or seen their case-less-laptop-clutching intern-lets crawling around Uajimaya riding around in little white vans from office to office?

Why doesn't Amazon reveal the exact numbers? They can't find a way to finesse the term "shitload".

A bottle opener? A rap ring capable of holding a 12kN fall and thus usable as part of a belay anchor? An attachment point for bungie cord for tethering it to the ellipticla trainer? An elegant response to the bad feng shui for your average e-reader? Electrodes for the new Church of Scientology E-reader - it reads you while you read it (Thetan!)?

Could it be the potential loss on Kindles that have yet to re-earn the cost of their free lifetime 3G connections? Bogus example:

"Hey! We sold 10 million Kindles at $189 a piece over the last 2 years. We're only paying $20 a month to provide 3G service for each one! Couple that with the 10 million Kindle books we've sold (less the 8 million of those from our free catalog) at an average of $9.95 a piece and you've got ... wait, how are we losing money on these?!"

Paul, I don't understand why you care how many kindle devices Amazon sells. It's obvious from their strategy that Amazon is interested much more in selling kindle books than kindle devices. As soon as there are enough good devices out there in the kindle ecosystem, I'd imagine Amazon might stop selling the devices altogether.

The more interesting question would be if Amazon has sold more kindle books on the iPad than Apple has iBooks. If they have, their kindle strategy is working perfectly.

All your future is belong to Apple.

Get used to it, @2.

As a public company Amazon releases all the financial information they are obligated to release and file all the required disclosures required by the SEC. Beyond that they have no obligation to tell you or anybody else outside the company how many Kindles, Kindle books, copies of the latest best selling novel or Canon digital cameras they have sold.
Sales figures for iPads and iPhones are important and need to be made public because those numbers are the closest thing to an erection that the fan boys get all year.