Quote:
Originally Posted by cjschmidt
I know about the store, I'd just like to know if there will be any surprises to come out of the deal. Assuming the new Borders beta page is pretty much what we'll see when is rolls out, I'm fairly confident in going ahead with the Sony. I just want to know that Sony and Borders are serious about competing with the Kindle and Amazon. The Sony Connect Store is functional and stocked well enough, but can it really compare to Amazon or iTunes? If I could log on to Borders right now and see the store, know whether it needs a plugin, or if I just download a file (Will it work on a Mac), things like that, I'd buy it in an instant. I've just been burnt too many times by "announced" and "in the near future".
|
Ah, Now I see what you're getting at, and I think it's a valid point.
I can't really say I know a great deal on the matter ('cause I don't) but I do know a few bits from here and there. The Sony Store has doubled in size in a year, and they certainly
seemed serious enough about competing in the market. I'd expect that the Borders store will have some sort of mechanism for managing the DRM on the books, but I don't know if it's going to depend on a downloaded app, or not, nor do I know if they plan to make it more than just WinOS supported, I get the impression that they're still working out the details there.
On the other side, I expect that Kindle will launch with more or less the listings that Mobipocket has now (since Amazon owns them, for anyone reading this who doesn't know) which is about 40k titles (roughly double Connect's holdings, but Mobi has been at it for 7 years to ConnStore's 1). We also have absolutely zip on details of how Amazon intends to structure its e-book business. We know that the Kindle is supposed to be ~$400, that it's
supposed to launch in 13 days, and that it was really ugly a year ago -- but we don't even know what it currently looks like.
So, yeah, if you want certainty on what to expect of e-book stores, now is not a happy time for you.
