[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I don't buy the "Mobi is a small shop" argument"; they are owned by Amazon!

Being part of a much bigger organization doesn't mean your division automatically has access to more resources.

If the development group for Mobi is small, it is small because Amazon wants it that way. Shoot, I can't imagine Stanza and eReader development teams are any larger than Mobi's, and they have both produced very credible readers for both OSX and the iPhone/Pod.

I agreed, but same difference. Mobi has X developers, where X is almost certainly < 10, and they are developing and maintaining for Windows, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Symbian and several other things. I suspect they're spread a little thin.

I think it basically comes down to this. Amazon is in the market of producing and selling the Kindle and books for the Kindle. Mobi was bought so Amazon could adapt their technology to the Kindle, and then make sure that Kindle Books could not be read anywhere but on Kindles. (Strike 1 in my book).

And Amazon uses a different form of DRM than Mobi itself, so purchased Mobi content from elsewhere can't be read on the Kindle. I've no doubt Mobi is thrilled about that move...

They of course license the Mobi software to other vendors, but only if they agree not to also support other DRM'd content. By keeping most of the devices down to Mobi devices, they can hope that ultimately users of such devices can upgrade to Kindles when they are released in different countries.

Possibly. I believe Mobi's "You may only license our software if no other DRM format is used" policy predates the acquisition by Amazon. It was inexplicable then, unless they hoped to drive customers to their store to buy ebooks by preventing the device from reading other protected formats.

Ultimately, the iPod Touch/iPhone, because of its popularity, has a real chance to become the dominant player in the eBook market. The last thing Amazon wants to do is undermine Kindle sales ... I think, ultimately, they held off on the development of an iPhone version because they were afraid it would eat into Kindle sales. Now that eReader, Stanza and Bookshelf are getting a lot of attention (not to mention lots of sales of eBooks for eReader) they are promising to come into the market.

That will be interesting if so, though I'll believe an Amazon Mobi viewer for the iPhone when I see one. Part of the question is how much of a factor the larger eInk screen is in the purchase decision. I've encountered folks with readers and iPhones for reading, because they may not carry the reader everywhere, but they always carry the phone.

Others think the iPhone is a potential Kindle killer, too:

Forbes: iPhone Steals Lead Over Kindle

Tom's Guide: Could the iPhone Kill the Kindle?

The problem for Mobi (but I think a win for eReading in general) is that it may already be too late for them to capture the bulk of e-Book readers on the iPod Touch. The only people who really care about it are the people who already have a significant DRM'd Mobi Library. The rest of us, are happily enjoying reading on our little iPods.

It may be, but they have to make the move. Lots of folks are reading on the iPhone/iTouch.

Shoot Dennis, if that is all it takes, just give me the specs, and I will see what I can do... I won't touch Word and maybe not PDF... but it should be easy enough to write a script that will convert txt and html to pml which then can be piped to DropBook.

http://www.ereader.com/ereader/help/dropbook/pml.htm
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Dennis