Epub coming to Amazon and the Kindle!!!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

But how much market are they really missing?

I think the hopeful speculation here is "enough now to make them do it."

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

At the moment they make X per book. If they had to pay money to Adobe, they would make less than X per book. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me
If they implemented ePub, they would implement their own DRM scheme.
Just like B&N, Apple and Kobo did.
For all the talk of ePub standards, what matters just as much is what the DRM scheme is, and that is very fragmented.

If your ereader supports Adobe DRM but can't open a book from B&N, blame the vendor of your ereader, not B&N or Adobe. Most ereaders shipped since the original Nook should be able to open both 'classic' and so called 'B&N' DRM books, and older ereaders can be updated by the vendor. Adobe's solutions (on both client and server side) support both DRM forms and licensees/vendors are free to use either.

Note that with ePubs purchased from B&N, you do not need an Adobe account to authorize with, you don't need ADE, you just need to know the B&N account name and credit card number that was used to purchase. When you open the book, it will prompt for these credentials (assuming the reader uses a recent enough version of the Adobe SDK). This 'flavor' actually seems to be more portable, since there's no limit on how many devices you can use it on simultaneously AFAICT (however, if you forget which credit card you used to purchase with I don't know how unlock the book - trial and error I suppose).

I'm not sure what you mean about Kobo. If you want to buy something from Kobo and want to read it on a non-Kobo ereader, just go to your Kobo account page to initiate download of a standard Adobe DRM ePub file. You'll get an .acsm file which can be opened with ADE or other reading systems that use the Adobe SDK to get an epub that can be read on any of the systems authorized with your Adobe account. However if you are using a Kobo device or app to download content directly/wirelessly, you don't get a portable ePub file; it is locked with Kobo-specific DRM (probably what you were thinking of).

It seems to me that Apple DRM is the worst, as the content is restricted to iOS devices that are associate with your AppleID, and there is no option to export a more portable Adobe DRM ePub. And they don't seem to have infrastructure set up that could be modified to do this: iBookstore is a closed system within a closed system. You can't even go to a web page to see what is in the store, or see what books you've bought from Apple, it all has to be done on your iOS device using iBooks.

If and when Amazon adopts ePub, they would do exactly what Kobo does: books bought and consumed using Kobo devices and apps are locked with a key that ties it to that device or app. No Adobe DRM is or would be involved. Kindle devices (which currently include at least part of Adobe RMSDK for PDF functionality, but in this scenario would need the ePub and DRM handling part as well) would be able to side-load Adobe DRM ePub at least via ADE serving as authorization proxy, but perhaps not directly (it would be in their interest to support opening B&N directly since that's their main US competitor). Kindle apps, no sideloading, because they would not license Adobe RMSDK software for the apps. And non-Kindle customers could purchase standard Adobe DRM ebooks to read on their non-Kindle devices. These would be fulfilled by Adobe Content Server, but Amazon would not be providing after-sale services (syncing, archiving of notes, etc.) for those books, so they can afford to give Adobe their fees.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The proportion of non-Kindle eInk to Kindle eInk may well be increasing, I agree, but ultimately that isn't the question. How is non-Kindle eInk doing in comparison to everything that can read Kindle books, which includes Kindles and Apple/Android tablets? I rather suspect it is shrinking.

Outside the US, ePub is the dominant format. And inside the US, I think it will grow unless Amazon can redo the Kindle to complete.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Outside the US, ePub is the dominant format. And inside the US, I think it will grow unless Amazon can redo the Kindle to complete.

It's the dominant international format, but the international market is so tiny compared to the US that it's hard to make a case that epub has any real lock-in. 75-80% of global e-book sales are still made in the US.