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Right now the Stanza reader works only on the iPhone, Amazon already has an iPhone reader. Furthermore it has an in house reader software development team in Mobipocket. EPUB is an open standard that is particularly easy to develop reading software for, by buying Stanza, Amazon doesn't gain any great wealth of proprietary code. The unique thing about Lexcycle was their attempt to develop a platform for independent retailers.
If Amazon wanted to make their books available on multiple platforms, they could easily have done so via the Mobipocket software (which they also took over and then stifled).
Now that is not to say that Amazon won't end up making their books multi-platform, they will have to, or they will become irrelevant.
The question here is why Amazon took over Stanza, today. The only reason that makes sense, is to control the spread of non Amazon retail channels. And competitors to Amazon are certainly not insignificant today.
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