[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Stanza can be used to read books on the iPhone, a Windows PC, or a Mac. I don't have much doubt that with a little extra work, an app can be put out for Blackberry or the upcoming Palm Pre. The idea would be to get it working on as many platforms as possible so that Amazon could sell books.

Umm the mobipocket reader can be used to read books on a much wider selection of devices, and Amazon already owns it.

That's not really true. The thing that Lexcycle did that Amazon might have interest in is that they have the ability to download directly from Fictionwise to the software. That means that Kindles can read Fictionwise books without the use of scripts to strip the DRM. This would put Fictionwise (i.e., Barnes and Noble) in a tough spot: Do they simply keep the DRM as-is, and give the Kindle a big advantage in the market (even though they will be coming out with a competing reader), or do they change the DRM, leaving iPod/iPhone users and Kindle users without an easy way to purchase from Fictionwise?

Stanza, with Adobe, was involved in the deveopment of an open standard to allow retailers to sell books to multiple devices in a simple way. It's based on the existing stanza atom feed technology, which is also openly documented. So by "buying" stanza, Amazon doesn't really get anything, as far as the ability to buy books from retailers is concerned, except, control of a popular platform that was threatening to make it easy for non Amazon entities to retail directly to multiple devices.

Stifled how?

Last time I checked (a few minutes ago), Mobipocket was even distributing the MobiPocket Creator Publisher Edition, which works with ePub, among other formats.

Just look at the pace of development of the Mobipocket software. It's had maybe three minor updates in a year and a half and Amazon decided to change the file extension for .mobi files to .azw for no good reason.

That Amazon wants to make their books available on multiple hardware platforms is beyond serious dispute. Otherwise, the Kindle iPhone software wouldn't exist at all. If Amazon didn't want to sell books to other platforms, all they would have to do is nothing.

With respect, I suggest you go read up a little bit on the history of ebook formats. Amazon took over mobipocket, whihc was selling books to a wide variety of devices. They then simply changed the file extension to .azw keeping the DRM technology exactly the same and decided to sell their books only for the Kindle. The wild success of the iPhone got them scared so they decided to belatedly port the Mobipocket reader to the iPhone and then buy Stanza which was the most threatening iPhone based competitor.

They've already got a DRM'd proprietary format. All they'd have to do is make the Kindle work with only DRM'd AZW or Topaz files. What you'd be left with is a perfectly serviceable device for reading only Amazon e-books. They didn't do that because they realize that there's value in being able to read multiple formats.

No, they didn't do that because they knew the negative press would have killed the Kindle.

And you can bet that the acquisition of Lexycle and Stanza makes it both easier to sell Amazon's books on other platforms, and easier to undercut Barnes & Noble in any e-book they develop.

Again, they already had the technology to sell their books on other devices if they wanted to.