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hacker · 04-15-2005, 08:01 AM

In a sudden sharp turn of direction for Amazon, they appear to be moving strong in the direction of the Copyright EBook market, head-on. They've recently purchased Booksurge, an on-demand book printing company, and also purchased... are you sitting down... Mobipocket! (details here).

In a less-publicized move in a related area, Amazon has apparently bought European-based Mobipocket, a PDA e-publishing competitor to Motricity (which owns what began as Palm-based ereading software and inventory). The move was disclosed as Franklin Electronic Publishers reported selling its shares in MobiPocket to Amazon for about $2.5 million, "in connection with Amazon's purchase of all MobiPocket's outstanding shares." Based in France, Mobipocket was founded in 2000 (as was BookSurge).

This could be good news for the EBook market, as well as developers of EBooks and EBook software and readers, whether supporting Copyrighted EBooks or otherwise.

Definately interesting times ahead!

04-15-2005, 08:01 AM	#1
hacker Technology Mercenary Posts: 617 Karma: 2561 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: East Lyme, CT Device: Direct Neural Implant	Amazon buys Booksurge and Mobipocket In a sudden sharp turn of direction for Amazon, they appear to be moving strong in the direction of the Copyright EBook market, head-on. They've recently purchased Booksurge, an on-demand book printing company, and also purchased... are you sitting down... Mobipocket! (details here). In a less-publicized move in a related area, Amazon has apparently bought European-based Mobipocket, a PDA e-publishing competitor to Motricity (which owns what began as Palm-based ereading software and inventory). The move was disclosed as Franklin Electronic Publishers reported selling its shares in MobiPocket to Amazon for about $2.5 million, "in connection with Amazon's purchase of all MobiPocket's outstanding shares." Based in France, Mobipocket was founded in 2000 (as was BookSurge). This could be good news for the EBook market, as well as developers of EBooks and EBook software and readers, whether supporting Copyrighted EBooks or otherwise. Definately interesting times ahead!