02-14-2013, 07:38 PM | #136 | |
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02-15-2013, 02:31 AM | #137 |
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I suspect you're wrong, Jon. Amazon have a clear majority of the ebook market in both the US and UK markets, and (according to the last figures I saw) these two markets account for about 85-90% of world-wide ebook sales.
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02-15-2013, 03:17 AM | #138 | ||
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Worse case i saw was a book so full of extra line jumps you couldn't make sense of the text. And one where the css caused the cybook to be horribly slow. Last edited by EowynCarter; 02-15-2013 at 03:19 AM. |
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02-15-2013, 11:34 AM | #139 |
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I still don't agree. When you add in all the non-Kindle reading done, it's ePub out in front.
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02-16-2013, 04:46 AM | #140 |
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02-16-2013, 04:47 AM | #141 |
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02-16-2013, 07:45 AM | #142 | |
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But there's still no compelling reason for them to switch. They'd lose more to people selling to kindle owners than they'd gain from selling epubs to other device owners. |
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02-16-2013, 07:47 AM | #143 |
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Yes - precisely the point I made earlier in the thread. There would be no commercial benefit whatsoever to Amazon to support ePub.
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02-16-2013, 09:06 AM | #144 |
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In the end, the closed system always dies or ends with the smaller market share, even when starting as the biggest or even only one. History proves that, at least in IT.
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02-16-2013, 09:13 AM | #145 |
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02-16-2013, 09:18 AM | #146 |
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Yup. Or send it to India where partially-trained workers add a modicum of manual intervention, then don't proof-read it when it comes back. It takes quite a lot of work to do a quality conversion. More than is economically practical.
Last edited by exaltedwombat; 02-16-2013 at 09:29 AM. |
02-16-2013, 09:29 AM | #147 | |
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Unix was there, long before Windows. And yes, Unix, or it's cousin Linux will be here after Windows is utterly gone. You may not know, but Windows is big only on desktops and laptops. *Everything else*, from embedded systems to phones to supercomputers, basically runs a Unix-like system such as Linux, a free Unix descendant such as FreeBSD, or a paid version of Unix such as AIX. All the rest (Windows servers) are just exceptions by comparison. Heck, even OSX is Unix-based, but if they make it closed like the iPhone, it will eventually die. They tried it before, and almost died in 1997. Last edited by Katsunami; 02-16-2013 at 09:36 AM. |
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02-16-2013, 09:42 AM | #148 |
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Let's say you're right - that closed systems eventually die - the question is how long is 'eventually'? and when do you act? There has to be a kind of tipping point where your "walled garden" market is declining to the point where it makes it worth opening up and competing on other devices. Now given that KF8 is basically epub with some special Amazon sauce on top you can bet Amazon could release an epub-capable firmware very quickly. Heck, I'd bet they maybe even have one internally. So as soon as they identify that tipping point - and I think we're some way off - they can act very quickly indeed.
One consequence of that might be though, that they decide to stop subsidizing the hardware to sell ebooks. If you're selling a platform anyone can sell to then better make sure you make a profit on that item itself. |
02-16-2013, 10:45 AM | #149 | ||
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future. Quote:
Last edited by HarryT; 02-16-2013 at 10:57 AM. |
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02-16-2013, 11:34 AM | #150 | ||
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There are a variety of Android phones, but it seems like a lot of Android sales are to people who are basically interested in having a phone for calling, e-mailing, and texting...and little else. Which suggests that, for people interesting in buying apps, the "walled garden" is not much of a deterrent. Quote:
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