So says Franklin's chief Barry Lipsky. Remember
Franklin? They distributed the Nuvomedia
Rocket eBook, one of the first dedicated e-book reader devices, in the late 90s. It was followed by the
eBookMan device, which boosted an awe-inspiring 200x240 LCD display, fast USB 1.1, and spacious 8MB of built-in memory. Marked by its failure to catch on, the company then sold the e-book business to
Ectaco, another company who specializes in selling dictionary hardware and software.
And today, while many of us are still desperately waiting for a decent e-book reader to come out, Mr. Lipsky thinks the situation for e-books has fundamentally remained unchanged. From a
recent article by
Mark Evans of the Canadian National Post:
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Barry Lipsky, Franklin's president and chief executive, said e-readers continue to be a tough sale because there are few benefits for consumers other than being able to carry a small library on a portable device. He said the industry has been hurt by a lack of creativity, failing, for instance, to provide such features as search capability not available in a printed book. "In general, the challenge is that e-readers are still somewhat a solution looking for a problem because paper works," he said. For e-readers to be successful, they must overcome the user-friendliness printed books have offered for more than 500 years.
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The article is worth a read, not only because it discusses the various dilemma still faced by e-book devices, but also because it depicts the discrepancies among various publishers' opinions on the forthcoming launch of the
Sony Portable Reader.
Quote:
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Not everyone is convinced the Sony Reader will be a hit. Michael Cader, president of Cader Books Inc., a Bronxville, N.Y.-based boutique book publisher, contends the Sony device will be "dead on arrival" because it is not different enough from previous e-readers except for a better screen. "Consumers have made it very clear they don't think reading is something they should pay hundreds of dollars for [for] a dedicated device where the [book reading] experience ... is not as good," he said in an interview at a recent industry conference in Toronto. "Look, there will be technophiles who will embrace it, but the Sony Reader doesn't offer any new solutions or twists."
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