A good idea ?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Billi

In theory you're right, in reality it comes down to one manufacturer-one dictionary with Mobipocket, too. Mobipocket dictionaries can only be used by devices that use the Mobipocket Reader as the basis of their reading program. And I don't know of any manufacturer who Amazon granted the right to implement the Mobipocket Reader in the last years (Bookeen and IRex and others were before). Your Bebook Neo is well able to read Mobipocket files but you can't use a Mobipocket dictionary with it, you have to use the device's dictionary. The same is true for the Pocketbook readers.

But any publisher can publish a dictionary in the Amazon bookstore. Unfortunately there is no way for anyone to create new dictionaries for, say, the Sony Reader. (I know that third party dictionaries can be created for Pocketbook devices, but unfortunately it's probably too small a market for the major dictionary publishers to be interested in.)

[Billi]

Yes, you're perfectly right, but maybe you see it more from the developer's side and I from the customer's.

If, in some future, I would buy an new epub-device and would wish to continue using my Pocketbook dictionaries then I am restricted to one brand, Pocketbook.
And if, in some future, I would buy a new mobi-device and would wish to continue using my mobipocket dictionaries then I am in the same way restricted to one brand, Kindle (as Bookeen isn't developing any mobipocket firmware anymore).

So, it is really great and a very big advantage of the mobi format to have a dictionary specification but if you have only one brand of devices that can make use of it, the advantage leverages a little bit.