[RockdaMan]

Some folks are irked that they can't easily transfer digital books they bought elsewhere into their Kindles. Why did you choose a proprietary technology?

We chose a format that we felt would give us better performance and superior ease of use. It's the reason why the Kindle has faster page turns than some of the other devices. Because we control our own standard, we can develop applications that let customers read Kindle books on the iPhone, Android tablet, iPad, BlackBerrys and PC.

Also:

It's not surprising that publishers who are raising prices are losing market share relative to publishers who decided to keep prices low. Customers aren't stupid.

and

Do publishers now see you as a rival rather than a customer because of your self-publishing business?

We think the efficiencies of selling digital books should not only accrue to publishers but should also accrue to authors. That means that the middlemen standing between authors and readers need to get more efficient, and they need to pass those savings along. The 70% [royalty] rate we offer is a way to pass those efficiencies along.

Publishers provide a valuable service to authors, but the model needs to evolve.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...19,print.story