Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
We already have that situation with MobiPocket. It's not a "formal" standard, but every eInk device on the market except Sony supports it. Buy a Mobi book and you can read it on a Kindle, a CyBook, a BeBook, and iLiad, a Hanlin, a JetBook, etc etc., not to mention hand-held devices such as PDAs, mobile phones, etc, pretty much all of which can read the format.
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Well, yes and no. Not every ebook in the Mobipocket store can be read on a Kindle, for example (which blows my mind, given that Amazon owns Mobipocket).
And Fictionwise sells DRM'd Mobipocket files but without removing the DRM, those can not be read on Kindle. Given the B&N purchase of FW, I doubt that's gonna change any time soon.
I really have a hard time understanding the marketing model here. EBook readers can't possibly be a super-high-profit item, since folks only buy one of them. It's the content, the books, that provide the profit! So booksellers should get as many readers as possible in people's hands, selling them at cost if necessary, and then compete for the book sales.
My gosh, I don't have to buy a new pair of eyes to read a book purchased at Border's versus B&N! Why should I need to buy a new reader???