Why Adobe?

[elemenoP]

Adobe paved the way for digital publishing with its Acrobat product. In addition, they have a near-lock (97% of market share or more) in book design/production software with inDesign. So I think it makes sense and was a smart move for them to pursue this space. I also think that old school, traditional companies (B&N, the big 6 publishers) would rather put their eggs in the basket of an old school, traditional company (Adobe). Kobo, being a start-up, might have gone a different way but I don't know the timing on that. Maybe Adobe DRM was already in place as the standard.

eP

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Probably now, yes. Mobipocket used to be another such company. Any bookstore could use their DRM servers. Not now, though.

I'd forgotten about mobipocket DRM servers.

[crossi]

Why aren't the people obsessing about Amazon's "monopoly" screaming about Adobe? They have much less competion that Amazon. Regardless of small changes in their DRM flavors most are licensed through them.

[AJ Starr]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Why Adobe? Blame Sony. (Everybod else does. )
...

Excellent explanation, and clearly delivered. Thank you.

AJ

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by crossi

Why aren't the people obsessing about Amazon's "monopoly" screaming about Adobe? They have much less competion that Amazon. Regardless of small changes in their DRM flavors most are licensed through them.

Because Adobe licenses the system to anyone. Amazon has pulled mobi and are the only users.

Adobe is not a bookseller, publisher, etc. using their own drm servers.

very different situations.

[BWinmill]

Originally Posted by crossi

Why aren't the people obsessing about Amazon's "monopoly" screaming about Adobe? They have much less competion that Amazon. Regardless of small changes in their DRM flavors most are licensed through them.

I don't get that either. Adobe has been relatively open with licensing standards to third parties and I get the impression that the licensing exends to both client and server side aspects for ADEPT. Of course there is still some risk to vendors and consumers using this approach (in contrast to a completely open standard), but it seems far less perilous to The Vendor and consumers than it is in Amazon's case.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by crossi

Why aren't the people obsessing about Amazon's "monopoly" screaming about Adobe? They have much less competion that Amazon. Regardless of small changes in their DRM flavors most are licensed through them.

Because the people who complain about Amazon's monopoly are Adobe users.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Because the people who complain about Amazon's monopoly are Adobe users.

Uh, if that were the case nobody would be complaining.

Adept's maret share of ebook sales is very low in the US and not even a plurality outside the US.
Current US ebook sales estimates hint at am ADEPT penetration of "maybe 5%" if that much, and that is counting all of Kobo as ADEPT instead of part ADEPT and part KEpub.
If UK reports are true, ADEPT runs well under 20%.
In most of Asia and especially Japan epub is only now starting to make inroads and its mostly Apple's mutation that is selling.

The irony of the Adobe "stndard" is that it is strongest where commercial ebook sales are weakest; in the most fragmented most immature markets where actual sales volume is miniscule.

It's hard to get people to fear you when you barely register on the retail radar.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

If UK reports are true, ADEPT runs well under 20%.

WELL under, I suspect. Amazon's domination of the UK market is much more complete than it is in the US, because we lack the strong 2nd-place player that B&N is in the US. I know numerous people with readers - every single one of them is a Kindle.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

WELL under, I suspect. Amazon's domination of the UK market is much more complete than it is in the US, because we lack the strong 2nd-place player that B&N is in the US. I know numerous people with readers - every single one of them is a Kindle.

And it's not just Amazon in the non-ADEPT camp.
People tend to neglect Apple's share because it doesn't sell dedicated ebook reader gadgets and iBooks is a minority player even on their own devices. But there's a honking *lot* of Apple devices out there. Most estimates I've seen have them at 15% of the US. And they may not be a true global player like Amazon but they are in more markets than Kobo. (30+ if I remember correctly.)
And if Nook gets any kind of international traction on the ebook side, ADEPT share is more likely to drop than to grow.
Right now, the "great white hope" of ADEPT is google. And what is their ebook market share like?

[Barty]

It's a mess. I guess we should give the movie industry some props for converging on a disc standard after the mercifully brief bluray vs hddvd battle.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Barty

It's a mess. I guess we should give the movie industry some props for converging on a disc standard after the mercifully brief bluray vs hddvd battle.

Books are not there yet and the video followed a similar mess in the music industry

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Barty

It's a mess. I guess we should give the movie industry some props for converging on a disc standard after the mercifully brief bluray vs hddvd battle.

$300 million from Sony to kingmaker TimeWarner settled that war.
(And in the aftermath many have concluded the wrong format won: BD disks are more expensive to build and the readers took too long to get to HDDVD prices, allowing the rise of digital downloads/streaming.)

There's no kingmaker in ebooks, though.
And even if they were, who'd cough up a comparable bribe? Those that could afford it are comfortable with the world of walled gardens. Those that favor a co-op ecosystem can't.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Why Adobe? Blame Sony. (Everybod else does. )

Thanks, fjtorres! Very interesting read!

[Abtacha]

Originally Posted by Barty

It's a mess. I guess we should give the movie industry some props for converging on a disc standard after the mercifully brief bluray vs hddvd battle.

Along with an even worse copy protection system than we have to deal with on ebooks.