Amazon’s Kindle may soon be just another electronic reader among a handful of choices on Verizon Wireless. In an interview with Reuters just ahead of CES, Verizon exec Tony Lewis, who runs a program to help third-party vendors get their products certified to work on the operator’s networks, said he expected Kindle rivals to launch in 2009, though he declined to specify who these competitors might be.

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Supporting electronic readers is part of Verizon’s Open Development program started last year, in which the operator said it would support independent devices sold by vendors other than itself. Verizon had initially balked at the thought of opening up their networks to independent devices, but then ended up throwing its support behind the idea when it realized it might actually be able to make money from them. As Lewis pointed out to Reuters (NYSE: TRI), Kindle is selling well on Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN), despite costing $359, and despite being back-ordered for seven to nine weeks after a customer placed their order, showing that consumers were willing to spend on wireless devices, even in a slowing economy. Lewis said 2009 would hopefully also see the network supporting independent handsets as well as electronic readers. So far, there’s 29 wireless devices running on Verizon sold by independent vendors, mostly business specific devices such as healthcare and tracking devices.

Rafat adds: The bigger question is which company would launch these connected readers? And once the connectivity issue gets solved, and say Sony (NYSE: SNE) updates its Reader, and other startups/CE companies work on it, who has the massive ecosystem like Amazon has? The question is not about technology and connectivity, the big question is who has the relationships with the publishers, and the who can develop pricing on books to bring in the masses? Who is the Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) of the supply chain? At this point, the answer is an obvious one….and difficult for others to swallow.

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