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Originally Posted by HelenB
... but I am still hesitant to purchase due to the fact that Sony chose yet another proprietary format, BBeB....
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Welcome to MobileRead, first off.
I see (even agree with) what you're saying about proprietary formats and the world not needing more of them, but I've reached the reluctant conclusion that until there
is a standard for e-books that is accepted and used by the publishing industry, it's really hard for me to be too upset when folks don't use that non-existant standard.
As for the Sony specifically, they included support for RTF, TXT & PDF support -- without conversion. Is it really so awful that they
also included their own format (which, as it happens, has been around serveral years)?
If there
were a 'standard' format and they'd gone with BBeB
instead (or even additionally), I'd agree with you without reservation, but that's not the case.
By adding BBeB they have the opportunity to offer almost 11,000 titles (that's what they said they were up to on Saturday), that they
couldn't offer if they'd stuck with just TXT, RTF, and PDF.
The other proprietary formats have been around long enough that folks have kind of forgotten that they
are proprietary, it's slipped under their radars, but things like mobipocket, ereader, rocketbook and microsoft reader
are still proprietary.
I think that the inclusion of these more 'open' formats is a hopeful sign that they'll be interested in supporting such a 'standard' format when one does eventually drag itself out of the primordial muck. Will they do so? There's no garauntee, but I do think these non-proprietary file formats are a good sign.