Having just parted with £100 for an e-reader (still a significant amount of money) I obviously believe in the technology and everyone is talking of the 'ipod moment' for books in the near future but I wonder what the future really holds for the market ?
My views for what they are worth;
- Kindle are following the Kodak/Gillette model i.e make the hardware cheap and take a loss if needs be so that you profit from sales of the stuff to go with it (difficult to describe razor blades as software
) which served them well when roll film and safety razors were new. They set the standard and others had to make things fit their devices. Will the closed azw format be the standard in future, if so where does that leave others ?
-Sony are an electronics company that produces technologically advanced equipment that works very well but has a lousy track record with winning standards wars e.g betamax , minidisc, ARTAC with Blu Ray the exception that proves the rule. Having realised this they no longer have a uk bookstore and rely on others to supply the goods but leave the hardware reasonably open and are supported by Calibre and ADE. In other words they are ok as long as Amazon does not dominate so much that only azw is available, in which case they strike a (presumably expensive) deal to get access to azw (and my device is dead) or they give up on the experience.
-THe other players (outside the USA this includes Barnes and Noble's Nook ) are 'me too' companies without the brand awareness of Sony or the web presence of Amazon. So they will need to innovate a LOT to differentiate the brand (and go the way of Irex ?) or become the bottom feeders at low prices with older technology.
-The elephant in the room is Apple's iPad which may make a pretty lousy
e-reader since it relies on a backlit LCD rather than e-ink but Betamax was probably a better system in many ways than VHS but most consumers buy what they see without too much research so that shouldn't hurt sales too much.
OK my prognosis- for the average 'person in the street' they want buying and using an e-book to be a similar experience to buying and using a paperback book but without the need to actually haul themselves to a book store or wait for delivery of the physical book. Instant gratification is what the web and iTunes has taught us to expect and so that's what they'll want (not a critique of lifestyle just an opinion) . The survivors will be in two camps;
1) The BIG portion will be those tied to a bookstore wirelessly (aka kindle or iPad) along the iTunes model - not exactly a poor business plan ! and the reader technology will be secondary as long as the reading experience replicates a paperback book (name the last time you made notes in the margin of a vacation paperback !) .
2) Readers with an open format for the smaller number of readers who want to choose their own books in a format which they prefer (DRM is not an issue if we are to reward intellectual endeavour) and are prepared to browse around, even maybe downloading via computer then transferring to the reader. This is an area I value as currently I get newspapers via calibre for free which I would pay for on Kindle)
Academic/business users may want to annotate the books but it's an add on not a prerequisite for most users.
In short Amazon will try very hard to impose their format, even if they take losses at first -remember the losses they took when they first set up and everyone laughed at the idea they could displace bookshops ? Apple will do a similar job with iPads and the bookstore but wont need to discount because people will buy iPads because its an iPad (as a mac user I know the power they have over users)
Sony are probably big enough to hang on for the smaller group but will need better tie ins to retailers and need to avoid missing the trick with WiFi again - the latest upgrade to the 300 series by adding a touch screen but no WiFi is ludicrous IMHO. Bookeen and the like I really like but dont hold much hope for their future.
Cheers
Any Comments ?