Sony Japan to focus on ebooks for cell phones

[grimo1re]

Sony plans to exit the Japanese market for the delivery of ebooks to PCs and its dedicated ebook reader. Instead, the company will focus only on delivering content to mobile phones, the Nikkei Business Daily reported this week.

Sony’s wholly owned subsidiary Timebook Town provides ebooks, ecomics and other content for use on PCs and the Librie ebook reader. However, since halting production of the Librie last year, Sony has decided to stop the Timebook service per February 2009 and liquidate the subsidiary.

From then on, Sony will only focus on delivering content to mobile phones. Sony’s Publishing Link, which launched services in December 2007 offering ebooks, ecomics and other mobile content, will be expanded. Sony said that demand for ebook readers remains strong in the US and other overseas markets so it will continue ebook sales for devices and PCs in those markets.

[BooksForABuck]

I'm glad that the Japanese eBooks on cellphone market is so strong but I hate to see Sony exit the eBook market in Japan. They may claim that the eBook reader market is strong in the US and that they'll sustain the product here, but it's hard to justify a business that doesn't sell in your home market.

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com

[Ervserver]

I guess they find reading books on 2 inch screens more enjoyable over there

[HarryT]

To be honest I'm surprised that they've kept the Librie bookstore open this long. It was a commercial disaster, by all accounts.

[kacir]

We have to remember that the Sony owned TimeBook Town is THE ONLY WAY of how to load book to your Sony Librie reader. There are some ugly hacks that enable you to read - gasp - your own text - that is text not purchased from TimeBook. Even legally ... aehm ... "purchased" books expire after 2 months.

It means all libries become expensive paperweights per march 2009.

It is scary to see how Sony treats the suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H customers that purchased their product. Phew!!!

[rmeister0]

Originally Posted by grimo1re

Sony said that demand for ebook readers remains strong in the US and other overseas markets so it will continue ebook sales for devices and PCs in those markets.

The missing part of the quote:

"...for now."

[lovebeta]

Originally Posted by kacir

We have to remember that the Sony owned TimeBook Town is THE ONLY WAY of how to load book to your Sony Librie reader. There are some ugly hacks that enable you to read - gasp - your own text - that is text not purchased from TimeBook. Even legally ... aehm ... "purchased" books expire after 2 months.

It means all libries become expensive paperweights per march 2009.

It is scary to see how Sony treats the suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H customers that purchased their product. Phew!!!

Never, ever, underestimate the ugliness of Sony's business ethics. They the biggest control freaks to date, probably along with apple.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by lovebeta

Never, ever, underestimate the ugliness of Sony's business ethics. They the biggest control freaks to date, probably along with apple.

I'm sorry, it's business not ethics. When a product line costs more to maintain than the revenue it produces it is generally dropped. Even if I got a Kindle and they told me all my books where safe in the "media library" I am still going to download them to my PC and archive them somehow.

BOb

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by lovebeta

Never, ever, underestimate the ugliness of Sony's business ethics. They the biggest control freaks to date, probably along with apple.

No 'bout-a-doubt-it...anyone remember the Sony "root kit" debacle? I am just happy I bought my Clie nx73v at a thrift store for $16 vs. buying it new only to be abandon as the "wonderful" Mylo's came out...bleech...Sony and Apple should just merge to form the anti-keyrist and be done with it...

[radleyp]

That's the very same picture that accompanied a NYTimes article of a few weeks ago that dealt with Japanese not just reading on their cellphones but actually writing entire novels on them (the verdict being that they read like long text messages). I think this is a terrible development: reading and writing on a screen that small encourages the composition of short sentences and almost no paragraphing, with no real layout even a possibility. In any case, it will lead to a transformation of the printed page that will seriously transform the way we read.

[JAcheson]

Well, if you are going to make your money selling content, you are going to make a lot more of it selling content for the device everyone already has.

Also, with a huge corp like Sony, it is probably more relevant to focus on the division of Sony doing this, instead of the corporation as a whole. Sony Pictures, Sony Music and Sony Computer Entertainment probably had minimal involvement in this, so bringing up the rootkit fiasco is mostly irrelevant.

[Donnageddon]

This is the message I do not want to see on Sony's ebook store

http://musicstore.connect.com/

I think with the existing hacks for uploading content to the Sony Reader, the Reader will continue to have a life for a long time (I still use my minidisc players), but I would not recommend buying a lot of Sony DRM'd books.

I would hope that Sony would provide a mechanism for reformatting their DRM'd books (making them useful after your Reader dies) if their Reader was ever discontinued. But based on my experience, that ain't gonna happen.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

I would hope that Sony would provide a mechanism for reformatting their DRM'd books (making them useful after your Reader dies) if their Reader was ever discontinued. But based on my experience, that ain't gonna happen.

They probably couldn't do that even if they wanted to-- the publishers would scream. The most you can hope for is that they'll transfer your record of purchase to someone else, like Fictionwise or Amazon. And that would likely only happen if they get bought by one of those entities.

[Donnageddon]

No doubt, neko. With the Sony minidisc players, you still have the option of playing your music out through the earphones and rerecording the music on a computer, or other device... at real time.

Perhaps if Sony discontinues the reader and ebook store, we can all just take pictures, page by page of our DRM'd books and make our own paperbacks!

[Shenzhov]

My bets are that after they pull this off in Japan, Sony will dump the connect store and ebook reader here in the U.S. They are probably waiting on the next round of their cell phones for sale here in the states towards the end of this year. I remember replacing my Palm V with a Sony Clie and 3 weeks later Sony dumped the hand held business here. Several months later my install cd would not work so I tried to download the Clie software and was met with the "we are no longer in that business" message.

I bought a PRC 505 against my better judgment and after trying to use the Connect store ordered a Kindle several months later. That was my last sony product "ever".