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Old 11-08-2009, 11:17 PM   #19
Nate the great
Sir Penguin of Edinburgh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
Do you believe that the technically inferior format (by which I assume you're referring to Mobipocket, as used by Amazon?) is likely to win? Amazon are showing every sign of trying to "kill off" Mobi, as witnessed by the fact that virtually every device which previously supported Mobi DRM either has, or is in the process of, switching over to ePub.

I know the Kindle is "big" in the USA, but even with the launch of the International Kindle, the same is really not true elsewhere, and certainly not here in Europe. Here it's Sony who's the big name in the market, not Amazon, and oretty much every European eBook store (other than Mobipocket, of course) sells ePub books, not Mobi.

I think there's very little likelyhood that Mobi will "win" the format wars; ePub is already in a dominant position, and becoming more so as each new ePub-supporting device is release. I think personally that it's only a matter of time until Amazon are forced, for good commercial reasons, to support ePub.
I think it's certainly possible, yes:
  • Amazon is the only 800 pound gorilla in digital publishing
  • the Kindle gets the most press coverage of any liseuse (it's certainly the most well known)
  • it's available in more countries than all Epub based readers combined
  • more ebooks are available for the Kindle than for Epub

TBH, I don't think either format will win. In fact, I question the assumptions of this whole discussion. The problem with discussing the format wars as a binary solution set (Epub vs Kindle) is that it ignores all the other formats out there. Neither of these formats will kill off PDF, for example. What makes people think one will kill off the other?

Last edited by Nate the great; 11-08-2009 at 11:20 PM.
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