MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Sony Reader -- Ask your questions to the Sony team

davidrothman · 07-28-2006, 01:18 PM

Many thanks for answering people's questions. I'm curious if Sony's fully considering the publishers' side. Someone with a huge publishing conglomerate tells me that there are already too many formats to support for the amount of resources this giant company has available. Now, think about the smaller publishers. And of course the rumored Apple machine might just add to the Tower of eBabel. What's more, an Adobe executive has said that BBeB will not be eternal. Meanwhile, as you can tell from other questions, format/DRM issues are very important to readers. Even now it would appear that the Sony Reader can't even handle DRMed PDF, the kind that big publishers prefer, especially for best-sellers.

Bottom line: Could it be that Sony would be better off going for a common format rather than paying--yes, paying--for books to be converted to the BBeB format? Can you really keep paying forever? And mightn't a common format might be one way to distinguish yourself from Apple, which probably will go for a proprietary approach? What do you think? Many thanks, and good luck with the Reader.

- David Rothman (wearing his OpenReader hat).

07-28-2006, 01:18 PM	#9
davidrothman Connoisseur Posts: 60 Karma: 32 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Alexandria, VA Device: Paperwhite, $50 Fire, iPad Air 2, Nexus 6, Kobo Aura H2O	Do publishers really want Sony format--especially with Apple looming? Many thanks for answering people's questions. I'm curious if Sony's fully considering the publishers' side. Someone with a huge publishing conglomerate tells me that there are already too many formats to support for the amount of resources this giant company has available. Now, think about the smaller publishers. And of course the rumored Apple machine might just add to the Tower of eBabel. What's more, an Adobe executive has said that BBeB will not be eternal. Meanwhile, as you can tell from other questions, format/DRM issues are very important to readers. Even now it would appear that the Sony Reader can't even handle DRMed PDF, the kind that big publishers prefer, especially for best-sellers. Bottom line: Could it be that Sony would be better off going for a common format rather than paying--yes, paying--for books to be converted to the BBeB format? Can you really keep paying forever? And mightn't a common format might be one way to distinguish yourself from Apple, which probably will go for a proprietary approach? What do you think? Many thanks, and good luck with the Reader. - David Rothman (wearing his OpenReader hat).