Quote:
Originally Posted by HPOliver
Way back in 1949 ... RCA’s “microgroove” technology drastically improved sound quality, but you had buy an RCA phonograph to hear it.
It seems likely the same thing will happen in the world of e-books, just as it did with the video tape wars in the 1970s, which incidentally were won by a division of RCA (JVC). The best product and most effective marketing will eventually prevail. In the meantime, all you have to do is jump on the right bandwagon when you buy your next e-reader.
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The reason RCA was able to take over was, in great part, the expense of making the records and the difficulty of making record-players that could play multiple types of discs.
Making different formats of ebooks is easy. Making software that reads different formats of ebooks is easy. There's no easy niche for a manufacturer to take over; Amazon manages by overwhelming popularity in the pbook market, but their unwillingness to allow even mobi DRM'd ebooks from other stores gets them flak from customers, and keeps them from being able to sell Kindles to people who've already bought ebooks from other stores.
There's not going to be a single ebook format or reader for the same reason that there's not a single type of bicycle. There are substantial differences in the formats, and no one bookstore or device manufacturer is in a position to force the others out of the marketplace.