The UK publishing industry is reberberating with the news that high-street bookseller Waterstones has inked a deal with Amazon to ‘launch new e-reading services and offer Kindle digital devices’ in its shops. Full details of how the partnership will work – complete with ‘dedicated digital areas’ in-store – won’t be announced until Autumn. But the wider question is whether this a.) makes a UK launch for Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet more likely in the coming months, and b.) stymies Barnes & Noble’s plans to bring its Nook Tablet across the Atlantic. B&N had been strongly tipped as a partner for Waterstones, but that prospect looks to have fallen by the wayside now. With the Kindle Fire and Nook the two only success stories so far for Android tablets in the US, British app developers beyond the books industry will be following the Waterstones/Amazon partnership with interest.