|
Just to put my 2 cents worth in, it sounds like it's pretty likely that there will eventually be convergence towards a particular ebook format standard. I also think that eventually DRM will go by the wayside. That is the direction that music is going and as hidebound (if you will forgive the pun) as the book industry is, I just don't see the book industry being able to avoid it. I just am not sure of the time line. As a guess, anywhere from 2-5 years.
I would expect that Amazon views the Kindle as a way to sale content, which Sony views connect as a way to sale hardware. That's just how each company seems to be focused, IMPO. From a consumer point of view, it seems like it would have made sense for Amazon and Sony to partner, but I guess this is a case of both companies getting a bit greedy and not wanting to share the pie.
I suspect that at the moment, the biggest question mark for many of the people who have purchased books is how to avoid having to repurchase books when formats change or more precisely, what to do with DRM'ed books since that is the only format that isn't easily re-formatted. My hope is that once DRM goes by the wayside, the various companies will provide a method for re-downloading the books at a fair price, but I guess that will depend on the contracts that the content providers have with the copyright owners. As we saw with the high def, dvd format wars, once it became clear which format was going to win, sales for that format picked up dramatically, so if that question gets cleared up, then I think we will see a jump in sales.
I've purchased quite a few books from Sony (around 100 last count), so this last question concerns me. However, I think that if the content provider (Sony in this case) either doesn't provide a solution or is too greedy about it, then a different solution will be available for most of these books.
|