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Quoth · 09-10-2021, 02:52 PM

Mobipocket was French. About 2000. Major ebook seller for PDAs.
Amazon bought them in 2005, but it took till 2007 for their subsidiary Lab126 to produce the first Kindle (eInk), using the mobipocket format, which was inferior to Sony's eInk reader. Sony's Librie in 2004 was the first commercial eInk ereader, so you could say buying Mobi was part of Amazon's plan to compete.

In the end Sony transferred ebook customer base to Kobo and stopped making ereaders as they couldn't compete with Amazon's aggressive book & ebook retailing. Amazon now have more than 80% of USA online paper sales and have bought up publishers and have 90% of English ebook sales worldwide. Other retailers are calling on the USA FTC to investigate Amazon, Amazon Prime, Amazon Web Dark UI, Kindle Unlimited and exclusive terms of KDP Select.

Sony left the ereader market in 2014, further eink devices were for corporate "digital paper use". The last actual ereader by Sony was in 2013.
Sony announced ebook store closures on 6th February 2014 with customers transferred to Kobo.

Early Sony ereaders didn't do ePub and the model range just before the PRS650 and PRS350 etc had to be shipped to Sony to get FW upgrade for epub (PRS300, 500, 600 etc discontinued in 2010).

Sony switched to Android from Linux at the end of August 2011 with the release of the PRS-T1, which even after firmware updates has a dictionary triggered bug.

Sony made the mistake of predicating the success of their ereader on having their own online store for ebooks. They should have persuaded the publishers to do it and concentrated only on HW. They made a similar mistake with added DRM and the minidisc.

Amazon concentrated on retailing and sold ebooks before they had the Kindle. Now with more than 1/2 of ebooks read on apps and Amazon's dominance of Audiobooks with Audible, the eink Kindle is a mere accessory.

The 2010 approx PRS350, PRS650 and PRS950 are far superior to the Kindle models then. I have a PRS350 and it's better than the last Kindle Basic without front light (same number of pixels).

09-10-2021, 02:52 PM	#39
Quoth Still reading Posts: 14,172 Karma: 105212035 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper	Mobipocket was French. About 2000. Major ebook seller for PDAs. Amazon bought them in 2005, but it took till 2007 for their subsidiary Lab126 to produce the first Kindle (eInk), using the mobipocket format, which was inferior to Sony's eInk reader. Sony's Librie in 2004 was the first commercial eInk ereader, so you could say buying Mobi was part of Amazon's plan to compete. In the end Sony transferred ebook customer base to Kobo and stopped making ereaders as they couldn't compete with Amazon's aggressive book & ebook retailing. Amazon now have more than 80% of USA online paper sales and have bought up publishers and have 90% of English ebook sales worldwide. Other retailers are calling on the USA FTC to investigate Amazon, Amazon Prime, Amazon Web Dark UI, Kindle Unlimited and exclusive terms of KDP Select. Sony left the ereader market in 2014, further eink devices were for corporate "digital paper use". The last actual ereader by Sony was in 2013. Sony announced ebook store closures on 6th February 2014 with customers transferred to Kobo. Early Sony ereaders didn't do ePub and the model range just before the PRS650 and PRS350 etc had to be shipped to Sony to get FW upgrade for epub (PRS300, 500, 600 etc discontinued in 2010). Sony switched to Android from Linux at the end of August 2011 with the release of the PRS-T1, which even after firmware updates has a dictionary triggered bug. Sony made the mistake of predicating the success of their ereader on having their own online store for ebooks. They should have persuaded the publishers to do it and concentrated only on HW. They made a similar mistake with added DRM and the minidisc. Amazon concentrated on retailing and sold ebooks before they had the Kindle. Now with more than 1/2 of ebooks read on apps and Amazon's dominance of Audiobooks with Audible, the eink Kindle is a mere accessory. The 2010 approx PRS350, PRS650 and PRS950 are far superior to the Kindle models then. I have a PRS350 and it's better than the last Kindle Basic without front light (same number of pixels). Last edited by Quoth; 09-11-2021 at 08:32 AM.