It’s hard to understand why Amazon and Sony haven’t shared information, or better yet boasted, about sales of their respective e-book readers. The book business, the music business, the movie business, all proudly parade units sold, downloads, website visits, box office receipts, and other data to impress the public, and even if you cut the hyped figures in half, disclosure of sales inspires confidence in one’s products. So why do we have to do everything but hack confidential archives to find out if the Kindle and the eReader are flying or flopping?

Engadget‘s Donald Melanson reports that a Citigroup analyst named Mark Mahaney found a clever way to track down Kindle sales. Mahaney reviewed Amazon’s deal with Sprint and concluded that Amazon sold about 500,000 Kindles in 2008. Kindle, it seems, uses Sprint Nextel network for transmitting books to customers.

Could be. Or couldn’t be. Given that Citigroup these days doesn’t even know how much money it has in its own vaults, one must take its Kindle count with a major grain of salt.

The hunt for a Kindle number has been as intense as it has been futile. Back in August TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld bragged, “We know how many Kindles Amazon has sold. ” He put the number at 240,000.

Even Amazon itself got into the act, sponsoring a chat on the subject that was slightly less scientific than voodoo.

Maybe Amazon is going to reveal sales figures at its February 9th press conference. Talk about secrecy, none of our intelligence operatives has been able to penetrate the reason why book and tech industry leaders have been convened to the Morgan Library for an announcement. What good are secrets if people actually keep them?

RC

While Sony has been upgrading its Reader, and Amazon may be upgrading its Kindle (we may know in a week or two), rival firms have not been sitting on their hands. We’ve reported on several contenders like the iRex Reader 1000, described as a “Kindle Killer.” Now Foxit has climbed into the ring with a bantamweight called the eSlick Reader.

One thing it has going for it is price – $230. That’s about one-third less than that of its prestigious competitors. And, according to Jose Fermoso of Wired, “It might be the first large hardware eInk device to play eReader files.” Translation: it uses the Palm format, meaning it can run on iPhones and a number of other mobile phone platforms. It would also presumably enable those who carry eReader books on their Palm Pilots to transfer the files to a larger and more navigable display unit. Down the road, if the gadget takes off, it might carry other, non-eReader platforms as well.

Wired’s Fermoso calls the device ugly, and the name “eSlick Reader” scarcely dances trippingly o’er the tongue. But if it gets the job done, and brings us closer to the tipping point of a $99.00 e-book reader, we’ll forgive its homeliness.

RC