Quote:
Originally Posted by astra
I agree with everything except the last sentence.
There was a moment when everybody thought that mobi is de facto and where it is at the moment? Amazon is leading as far as I can see. By distributing free applications for all sort of mobile gadgets they win the market, the majority. The majority have no clue/don't give a fig about compatibility, DRM etc. All they care is convenience. If you can get a book with a few clicks of a mouse start reading a book, then come, home switch on another device that will automatically synchronize with the other one where you started to read the book and open the book on the same page where you left off....it sounds like a dream.
P.S. I would go for it if it had Sony's h/w.
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But if what you sync with Kindle eBooks happens to be the same eBook that someone else on your same Amazon account happens to be reading, you are well and truly screwed.
Back when people declared Mobipocket the winner, it wasn't. MS Reader still had a heavy market share back then. But ePub has basically killed MS Reader and Amazon has basically killed Mobipocket.
ePub is the format standing where MS Reader and Mobipocket once stood. As for eReader, it's dying and won't survive. Not many people care if it exists. Amazon is not going to win. One reason is PDF. A lot of people want better PDF support then you get on a Kindle. And to do that, they go to a different dedicated reader and that reader supports ePub.
Most of the devices that run the Kindle app also run an app to handle ePub. In fact, the Bluefire Reader app has just trumped the Kindle app big time and made library ePub work on the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. So that's another one up for ePub. If you ignore ePub from Apple and B&N, you have more places to buy ePub, and more devices to display ePub. Outside the USA, the question is AZwhat? Outside the USA, ePub has won and Amazon isn't going to catch up. So when you look at things world wide, Amazon is not the winner. They are second place.