Just days after the Amazon Kindle had its first birthday, the company's popular eBook reader disappeared from shelves and will not be available until February of next year, Macworld reports.

"The Kindle has been out for a year, and has been enormously popular, so its vanishing makes a degree of sense," the article said. "But one would figure Amazon understood the demand for its product and would stockpile appropriately."

It's also possible that Amazon is clearing its stock of the first-generation device ahead of a rumored revamp due early in 2009. But missing out on all holiday season sales, plus at least an entire month afterward, doesn't seem like the smartest business strategy to us.