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Will Amazon Adopt A Different Format For Kindle Books In Future?
Tuesday, 24 November 2009 09:14 | 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, including Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Asus and Plastic Logic all have new readers in the pipeline and with launch dates scheduled for the near future.
As important as the technical aspects of these various readers are, it may not, in the final analysis, be the deciding factor. Currently the ability to select an e-book from Amazon's massive collection of available titles is a big advantage for them. More than 300,000 titles are available for the Kindle on the Amazon website. The problem is that you must buy your e-books from Amazon. If you then decide to change to a different type of reader, you won't be able to transfer your Kindle books over to it. It's possible that some transfer option may be made available in future - but at the moment it's a case of Kindle e-books for the Kindle reader. In other words it's a closed system.
Most of the other manufacturers seem to be lining up behind one common format - ePub - which is different from that currently used by Amazon. This would give users the freedom to transfer e-books from one reader to another and also afford them more choice when deciding where to buy their e-books from in the first place.
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.
Regardless of whether or not Amazon can hold on to their current leadership position, it does appear that the e-book market is going to experience some cut-throat competition going forward and that standard formats will be put in place in the near future. This is good news for consumers as prices will inevitably fall.
by AndrewKing
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, including Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Asus and Plastic Logic all have new readers in the pipeline and with launch dates scheduled for the near future.
As important as the technical aspects of these various readers are, it may not, in the final analysis, be the deciding factor. Currently the ability to select an e-book from Amazon's massive collection of available titles is a big advantage for them. More than 300,000 titles are available for the Kindle on the Amazon website. The problem is that you must buy your e-books from Amazon. If you then decide to change to a different type of reader, you won't be able to transfer your Kindle books over to it. It's possible that some transfer option may be made available in future - but at the moment it's a case of Kindle e-books for the Kindle reader. In other words it's a closed system.
Most of the other manufacturers seem to be lining up behind one common format - ePub - which is different from that currently used by Amazon. This would give users the freedom to transfer e-books from one reader to another and also afford them more choice when deciding where to buy their e-books from in the first place.
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.
Regardless of whether or not Amazon can hold on to their current leadership position, it does appear that the e-book market is going to experience some cut-throat competition going forward and that standard formats will be put in place in the near future. This is good news for consumers as prices will inevitably fall.
About the Author:
Learn more about theAmazon Kindle reader and find out how to get free Kindle books direct from Amazon's website.