Quote:
Originally Posted by J. Strnad
<<Actually ages ago Bezos said he'd allow Kindle on other ereaders, as long as they were willing to hook into Whispernet.>>
Since he's backing off Whispernet with the Wi-Fi Kindle, I wonder if there's any chance he'll soften that stance.
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Would it matter if he did?
Amazon wants to be the sole source for ebooks. You can read them with a Kindle or Kindle app for whatever platform, but you have to
buy them from Amazon.
The Big 3 in the dedicated reader market at this point are the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, and the Barnes and Noble nook. There are other players, but they have small fractions of the market.
Barnes and Noble is in direct competition with Amazon as a book retailer, and wants you to buy ebooks from them. Can you really see them adding Amazon Kindle software to the nook, or Amazon giving them a license? I can't.
Sony is a greater possibility, since their desire is to sell you the Reader, but I still don't think it's likely.
Amazon bought Mobipocket and uses their software as the basis for the Kindle and the Kindle apps. Mobi always insisted that their ebook software was the only one doing DRM on the device before agreeing to issue a license to a reader vendor (which is why the Bookeen Cybook has Mobi software, but the Bookeen Opus uses Adobe's ePub/PDF viewer software. They weren't allowed to have both on the same device.)
I don't see Amazon changing that stance, and I don't see Sony issuing another reader model using Mobi viewer software that can only read purchased content from Amazon.
And dedicated readers are a niche market in any case. It's quite likely that for more people will actually read Kindle editions on an iPhone, iPad, Android device or PC than than on an actual Kindle reader. That's fine by Amazon, because they want to sell you the books.
I can see where being able to read Kindle editions on other readers would be a convenience for people who preferred dedicated readers, but I don't see what's in it for Amazon to make that happen.
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Dennis