Will A Common E-Book Format Be Adopted?
Monday, 23 November 2009 09:22 | 
Written by Andrew King |
After two years of total domination by Amazon, it's looking like there is now some genuine competition emerging in the e-book market. The Amazon Kindle reader may even be knocked off the top spot in the not too distant future.
After two years of total domination by Amazon, it's looking like there is now some genuine competition emerging in the e-book market. The Amazon Kindle reader may even be knocked off the top spot in the not too distant future.
There are a large number of manufacturers who are getting ready to launch new e-book reader hardware - some before the end of 2009, some early next year. The launch of no fewer than three new readers has been confirmed by Sony. The Sony Daily Edition reader - due to launch in December 2009 - is probably the most significant of these. It will have touch screen controls, 3g wireless connection and will let users borrow e-books on loan from participating lending libraries.
Other manufacturers such as Barnes and Noble, Apple, Microsoft, iRex and Plastic Logic all have new readers planned for release in the near future.
The technical specification of e-book readers is certainly a very important factor. However, in the final analysis, it may not be the most important aspect in determining success. Amazon currently have a huge selection of books to download for the Kindle on their website - over 300,000 are available (and increasing every day). Unfortunately, if you have a Kindle, then you are pretty well tied to buying your books from Amazon. If you want to change to a different reader later on, you won't be able to port your Kindle books over to it due to the proprietary format. Maybe in future some transfer option will be made available - but right now it's Kindle books for the Kindle reader.
Other manufacturers seem to be moving towards a common e-book format - called ePub, which is different to that used by Amazon. This would allow users the licence to port books between different reader devices. It would also allow them to source their e-books from a number of different vendors. In other words, it would give them more freedom of choice.
In the event that the ePub format became an industry wide standard, then it may turn out that Amazon's current competitive advantage could be transformed into a bit of a liability. Were this to happen, Amazon could certainly recover by ensuring that their e-books were compatible. this could be done using either a translation facility or simply by adopting the new standard.
It does look as if there is going to be strong competition in the e-book arena in the immediate future. This is good news for consumers as strong competition, coupled with standardization, will produce a downward pressure on prices.
After two years of total domination by Amazon, it's looking like there is now some genuine competition emerging in the e-book market. The Amazon Kindle reader may even be knocked off the top spot in the not too distant future.
There are a large number of manufacturers who are getting ready to launch new e-book reader hardware - some before the end of 2009, some early next year. The launch of no fewer than three new readers has been confirmed by Sony. The Sony Daily Edition reader - due to launch in December 2009 - is probably the most significant of these. It will have touch screen controls, 3g wireless connection and will let users borrow e-books on loan from participating lending libraries.
Other manufacturers such as Barnes and Noble, Apple, Microsoft, iRex and Plastic Logic all have new readers planned for release in the near future.
The technical specification of e-book readers is certainly a very important factor. However, in the final analysis, it may not be the most important aspect in determining success. Amazon currently have a huge selection of books to download for the Kindle on their website - over 300,000 are available (and increasing every day). Unfortunately, if you have a Kindle, then you are pretty well tied to buying your books from Amazon. If you want to change to a different reader later on, you won't be able to port your Kindle books over to it due to the proprietary format. Maybe in future some transfer option will be made available - but right now it's Kindle books for the Kindle reader.
Other manufacturers seem to be moving towards a common e-book format - called ePub, which is different to that used by Amazon. This would allow users the licence to port books between different reader devices. It would also allow them to source their e-books from a number of different vendors. In other words, it would give them more freedom of choice.
In the event that the ePub format became an industry wide standard, then it may turn out that Amazon's current competitive advantage could be transformed into a bit of a liability. Were this to happen, Amazon could certainly recover by ensuring that their e-books were compatible. this could be done using either a translation facility or simply by adopting the new standard.
It does look as if there is going to be strong competition in the e-book arena in the immediate future. This is good news for consumers as strong competition, coupled with standardization, will produce a downward pressure on prices.
About the Author:
Learn more about theAmazon Kindle reader and find out how to get free Kindle books direct from Amazon's website.