Germany: eBooks not yet a mass market product

[karunaji]

Sometimes to be late in the market is more advantageous.

We don't need a compelling platform for e-books, we need convenient and easily applicable standards. Think how the GSM standard which mandated replaceable SIM cards quickly gained more acceptance worldwide despite first largest operators successfully introducing and still using CDMA technology in the US.

It is expected that e-ink prices will fall in 1 or 2 years. I base this prognosis on the fact that Russia and other countries are building e-ink screen factories. It may even lead to overproduction thus falling prices. Thus E-ink readers may become as ubiquitous as cheap mobile phones are today in India or China.

Most likely Amazon will not be able to enter Asian markets and even Eastern Europe or Russia due to inexperience of cultural or linguistic traditions there. But e-book market will flourish with cheaper devices.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by karunaji

Sometimes to be late in the market is more advantageous.

We don't need a compelling platform for e-books, we need convenient and easily applicable standards.

It is expected that e-ink prices will fall in 1 or 2 years. I base this prognosis on the fact that Russia and other countries are building e-ink screen factories. It may even lead to overproduction thus falling prices. Thus E-ink readers may become as ubiquitous as cheap mobile phones are today in India or China.

But e-book market will flourish with cheaper devices.

Uh, I may be mis-reading your intent but you sound as if you think the value of ebook readers lies in the hardware *alone*.

In that case, yes; arriving late to market with me-too generic products would result in great success. That applies to entry level cellphones and dvd players but, unfortunately, *NOT* to the commercial ebook business.

If cheap "standard" hardware were the key to success in ebook readers the horde of cheap chinese Adobe-ADEPT LCD readers flooding ebay would rule the ebook world instead of barely being footnotes.

But, as it turns out, ebook readers, are *NOT* about the hardware at *all*. Focusing on the hardware misses the point completely; ebook readers are about providing *access* to ebooks. As a result, ebook readers do *not* best compare to entry-level cellphones but rather to other content delivery vehicles like gaming consoles.

And the "compelling platform" is in fact pretty much the key to mainstream success.

Focusing on hardware as a source of the product value's neglects the value-add from the device's software, its support network, and its commercial ebookstore. Just cranking out cheap hardware runnning quickie ports of open source, DRM-free readers or Adobe's generic ADE might be adequate for hobbyists and techies and is not a bad way to seed a market but to reach beyond the early adopter/enthusiast niche and get to the mainstream consumer requires better-integrated products with more sophisticated software and backend services.

The situation in Germany and other european nations reflects a variety of factors, some cultural, some political, some economic, and some... some due to the fact that the bulk of the available readers are sold with barely a nod to after sale concerns and no significant support infrastructure that would ensure mainstream readers can effectively use the gadgets to their fullest. Most are in fact limited to use solely as PC Peripherals, which right there excludes a significant portion of the potential market.

The most successful mainstream-user readers are those that people can turn on, buy a book, and just read. No need to know what format the book is in, no need to tweak settings, no need to decompile the book, rewrite a CSS, and recompile the book. No need to keep track of device authorizations or whether their PC can even see the reader.

I *own* those kinds of readers.
And yes, they are "successful" in Asia and other areas.
If by success you mean sales by the tens of thousands a month.
Kindles, Kobos, and Nooks sell by the hundreds of thousands a month; Kindle is doing over a million a month right about now.

And the reason these western readers are successful at those volumes even at current hardware prices is because their vendors are selling ebooks, not hardware. They put their efforts into improving the software, making the firmware rock-solid stable and as crash-proof as humanly possible, and extending the reach of their ebookstore networks.

For those readers, the hardware is but the tip of the iceberg.
The bulk of the value lies in the unseen software and support areas.
When ebook readers offer a compelling story on those issues, *that* is when they are ready to reach out to mainstream consumers, who simply want to *read*.

BTW, you mention Russia and the far east. Yes, those are very different "culturally" and the idea of what constitutes a commercial ebook is very different round those parts. That may be the situation forever. Or it might not.
It is my understanding that one of the more popular reader lines are the POCKETBOOK series. I own two separate models. They... seem to be having issues of late.
Their efforts to expand by focusing on (very good) hardware, releasing five separate new model simultaneously seems to have left them with a lot on their plate trying to get those back-end software and support and stability issues under control. Hopefully they will and soon. But I worry because this kind of over-reach has happened before in other industries and it rarely ends well.

It is very early in the history of ebooks and there's no telling how things will stabilize but certain lessons are clear from the past few years.

And the biggest lesson so far is that hardware is secondary to the software and both are secondary to the *books*. Don't expect cheap generic "standard" hardware to be with us much longer as anything but a niche product, if that much.

The real winners will be those that build solid reading *platforms* and those may be global players or local players but what they won't be is hardware-only.

[karunaji]

Maybe I have over-emphasized the importance of hardware at the expense of authors, publishers and content vendors but I still believe that cheap e-readers are crucial in widespread adoption of ebooks.

My personal opinion is that LCD simply is not an adequate technology for dedicated e-readers, e-ink is. I used to read Mobipocket books on Palm device for many years but then around 2007 I tried to buy a dedicated Ectaco e-reader with a reflective LCD screen for about $100. It was so bad that I returned it the same day. It made no sense to buy a dedicated e-reader when Palm and laptops and nowadays iPhones and iPads and other multifunctional tablets can do the same and much more.

The question is: can they make e-ink screens even cheaper than they are now? Maybe manufacturers have hit a wall but it is apparent that some industry players are betting on e-ink proliferation. E-ink readers should come in all sizes and options of additional functionality to fit everyone and it will be too difficult to fulfill by one vendor.

You are right about simplicity but it is achievable through well established open standards as well, not with proprietary platforms. The comparison with cell-phones is justified. You buy any cellphone you like out of hundreds of models available, insert your SIM card and start making calls. Transferring the contact list to the new phone is the greatest hurdle in this process. Why it should be different with books? You buy an e-reader, go online (through WiFi, 3G or via computer), enter your password for your bookstore(s) (Amazon, Kobo, etc.), deregister the old device if required and continue reading your books as before. Any other functions will be secondary and non-essential.

Kindle sells best because of lower price only. Pocketbooks and others are still too expensive for masses. They are not on the level of cheap cellphones yet. In either case I suspect that in Russia most ebooks read on these devices are non-DRM works, publicly available, i.e., from lib.ru , or otherwise. If e-ink prices fall, Kindle loses its edge.

Don't expect cheap generic "standard" hardware to be with us much longer as anything but a niche product, if that much.

I wouldn't be so sure. Cheap cellphone models don't make news and ad space but they can be bought everywhere. My wife just downgraded her 3-year-old broken semi-smartphone to a simpler Samsung model for $50 that has decent battery but can do only calls and SMS only. She just couldn't remember if she had used any extra functions during the last year so no need to spend money on it.

The real winners will be those that build solid reading *platforms* and those may be global players or local players but what they won't be is hardware-only.

The real winners will be readers who will have more options what to read and access to even greater selection of books that no physical bookstores and libraries can ever provide.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by karunaji

Maybe I have over-emphasized the importance of hardware at the expense of authors, publishers and content vendors but I still believe that cheap e-readers are crucial in widespread adoption of ebooks.

You are right about simplicity but it is achievable through well established open standards as well, not with proprietary platforms.

But manufactures of cheap eReaders don't control that, the providers of the stores/DRM platforms do.

The comparison with cell-phones is justified. You buy any cellphone you like out of hundreds of models available, insert your SIM card and start making calls. Transferring the contact list to the new phone is the greatest hurdle in this process. Why it should be different with books? You buy an e-reader, go online (through WiFi, 3G or via computer), enter your password for your bookstore(s) (Amazon, Kobo, etc.), deregister the old device if required and continue reading your books as before. Any other functions will be secondary and non-essential.

And for Amazon this will only work on platforms Amazon have decided they want to support, the other manufactures cannot control this.

Kindle sells best because of lower price only.

No, this is just wrong.
A big selling point of Kindles is that they do work exactly as you described above to access books from Amazon, and other eInk readers do not.

Pocketbooks and others are still too expensive for masses. They are not on the level of cheap cellphones yet. In either case I suspect that in Russia most ebooks read on these devices are non-DRM works, publicly available, i.e., from lib.ru , or otherwise. If e-ink prices fall, Kindle loses its edge.

If all you are reading is free content, then yes.
If a bookstore achieves the sort of market dominance with for-sale content that Amazon have achieved in the US, then their preferred reader will have the edge.

[karunaji]

And for Amazon this will only work on platforms Amazon have decided they want to support, the other manufactures cannot control this.

That's why I think Amazon is not even going to try to enter Russian market.

No, this is just wrong.
A big selling point of Kindles is that they do work exactly as you described above to access books from Amazon, and other eInk readers do not.

Not in Latvia or Russia The main question asked about any e-reader is, does it show Latvian/Russian fonts correctly.

If a bookstore achieves the sort of market dominance with for-sale content that Amazon have achieved in the US, then their preferred reader will have the edge.

That's a big if. Generally it appears that global corporations have hard time to adapt to cultural differences. For example, even Google has problems to win over yandex.ru.

I remember that the first cellphone companies in Russia had CDMA networks with operator given handsets and the US pricing model, much like Verizon. They were successful among more wealthy population and the cell phone became a status symbol. But later the GSM networks with prepaid option, free incoming calls and a big second-hand phone market was a killer and suddenly everybody could afford one. At the end all operators had either to switch to GSM standard or remain a niche.

But as it is now, even Kindle is too expensive for an average Russian who earns 3-4 times less money than an average American while the amount of books read per year are about the same or even more for Russians. Relationships between time, convenience and price look completely different there.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by karunaji

Kindle sells best because of lower price only.

That is a fallacy. The price point certainly helps, but the important thing is quick and easy, simple, reliable access to Amazon's books.

If e-ink prices fall, Kindle loses its edge.

I don't see that happening; if e-ink becomes cheaper Amazon will be able to offer cheaper Kindles (they can split R&D costs among a few millions units sold, too). They're in the content business, though, Kindles are just a means to an end.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by karunaji

The main question asked about any e-reader is, does it show Latvian/Russian fonts correctly.

Not exactly an insurmountable issue in this day & age of ubiquitous Unicode.

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

That is a fallacy. the price point certainly helps, but the important thing is quick and easy, simple, reliable access to Amazon's books.

Which most Latvians or Russians can't read because there are very few books in Latvian or Russian on Amazon

I have bought e-books from Kobo and a local Latvian bookstore. Maybe it is just me but in all cases the procedure was quite straightforward. You just buy a book on your computer and then connect the Kobo reader to the computer and transfer it. For free and non-DRM content you just use Calibre and transfer it to the device.

In fact, using Kindle was more confusing because some books get moved to Archived folder and then I can't access them when away from Wi-Fi hotspot. There is no added value in being able to buy books directly from Kindle because I use Wi-Fi only at home next to my computer anyway. It definitely is not worth $2 per book as buyers in many countries are charged.

I don't see that happening; if e-ink becomes cheaper Amazon will be able to offer cheaper Kindles (they can split R&D costs among a few millions units sold, too). They're in the content business, though, Kindles are just a means to an end.

If a price becomes affordable to an average user, let's say $50 per device, then lower price that Amazon could offer becomes less important, especially if this device does not allow easy loading of e-books from local bookstores.

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Not exactly an insurmountable issue in this day & age of ubiquitous Unicode.

Fonts are there but for commercial product you need more than that. For example, search function in Kindle is meaningless if it doesn't support Russian keyboard. Alphabetic ordering is another issue. Localized version with all menu options translated into local language is preferable.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by karunaji

Which most Latvians or Russians can't read because there are very few books in Latvian or Russian on Amazon

It doesn't have to be Amazon. That said, if money's to be made there they'll show up sooner or later. I wouldn't count on their entering the Latvian market soon, granted, but books in Russian? Surely only a question of time. That said, it's early days yet, Amazon has only just begun getting a foot into European markets (Germany and France, for starters).

With all that in mind, I don't use Amazon myself. I couldn't care less about them failing in some markets.

Fonts are there but for commercial product you need more than that. For example, search function in Kindle is meaningless if it doesn't support Russian keyboard. Alphabetic ordering is another issue. Localized version with all menu options translated into local language is preferable.

Of course, but that's really just a firmware update away. It's not exactly rocket science.

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

It doesn't have to be Amazon. That said, if money's to be made there they'll show up sooner or later. I wouldn't count on their entering the Latvian market soon, granted, but books in Russian? Surely only a question of time.

Of course, someone will definitely sell e-books there when e-reader devices have become affordable.

Of course, but that's really just a firmware update away. It's not exactly rocket science.

It is hard work by qualified UI and linguistic specialists for a given language. It only sounds trivial but it is exactly this thinking why there are so many failures in this area.

[Feylamia]

Originally Posted by karunaji

It is hard work by qualified UI and linguistic specialists for a given language. It only sounds trivial but it is exactly this thinking why there are so many failures in this area.

It's really not that hard if you team knows what they're doing. Certainly a company such as amazon can afford the salary for one or two linguists/encoding specialists.

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by Feylamia

It's really not that hard if you team knows what they're doing. Certainly a company such as amazon can afford the salary for one or two linguists/encoding specialists.

The problem usually starts with management chain that do not understand localization process at all. I will give you a small example. It is impossible to translate a phrase "Hi <User>!" into Latvian by replacing these two words. First of all, in Latvian names in this position require ending changes (the vocative case). And the second problem is the difference of acceptable formality.

These issues can be solved with proper changes in UI but usually they are out of scope of translator's direct work. And even if the translator warns the project manager about these issues in most cases they get rejected by the first level managers who do not think that it is important or want to avoid more changes in the product than absolutely necessary.

Example from the real life: I noticed that Google maps now shows projected fuel costs when calculating directions. It is a nice function but I found that the results are not very representative if I select my car type according to offered options: Compact/Standard/High Consumption. I have a Standard car but it appears that even "Compact" option calculates slightly more costs than they actually are. Most likely there is a difference what is generally considered a Compact or Standard car type in different countries. But the localization process of big companies is such that it is very hard to make these changes. Even when managers agree nothing gets done without the approval of the legal department and so on.

[Feylamia]

Don't worry, I do get that the people making decisions in the design process of a software are not necessarily fit to make them.

However, you made it seem as if internationalization were tougher on a technical level than it actually is.

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by Feylamia

However, you made it seem as if internationalization were tougher on a technical level than it actually is.

It is. The argument is that Kindle's success is due to convenience to users. It is absolutely true but not everybody realizes that Amazon has invested a lot in utility studies. This success is not easy to replicate because not every company can afford such investment.

What I am saying that what is applicable for one country, will not work in another with a different culture. Basically, it requires starting from the scratch. In most cases it is not worth it.

[Feylamia]

Originally Posted by karunaji

The argument is that Kindle's success is due to convenience to users.

I'm not questioning that argument - I am merely pointing out that internationalization of the GUI and the search function is not as big a deal to experienced programmers as many people seem to think.