After a couple of years of almost complete domination by Amazon, it looks as if the e-book marketplace is about to see some stern competition. We may even see even the replacement of the Amazon Kindle reader as the market leader.
There are a large number of manufacturers who are getting ready to launch new e-book reader hardware – some before the end of 2009, some early next year. The launch of no fewer than three new readers has been confirmed by Sony. The Sony Daily Edition reader – due to launch in December 2009 – is probably the most significant of these. It will have touch screen controls, 3g wireless connection and will let users borrow e-books on loan from participating lending libraries.
Other manufacturers, including Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Asus and Plastic Logic all have new readers in the pipeline and with launch dates scheduled for the near future.
However, as important as the technical specification of the various reader devices is likely to be, it may not be the deciding factor. At the moment, the ability to choose an e-book from Amazon’s huge range of available titles is a huge advantage for them. There are over 300,000 e-books available for the Kindle on the Amazon website. The trouble is that you must buy your e-books from the Amazon store. Further, if you subsequently decide to change your reader to a different type, then you are currently unable to take your e-books with you. Possibly this option may be made available in future, but currently it’s a case of Kindle reader, Kindle e-books. Put it another way – it’s a closed system.
Most of the other manufacturers seem to be lining up behind one common format – ePub – which is different from that currently used by Amazon. This would give users the freedom to transfer e-books from one reader to another and also afford them more choice when deciding where to buy their e-books from in the first place.
In the event that the ePub format became an industry wide standard, then it may turn out that Amazon’s current competitive advantage could be transformed into a bit of a liability. Were this to happen, Amazon could certainly recover by ensuring that their e-books were compatible. this could be done using either a translation facility or simply by adopting the new standard.
Whether or not Amazon are able to retain their current dominant position, it looks very much as if the e-book market is going to have some strong competition in future and that industry standards will be put in place sooner rather than later. All of this is excellent news for consumers.
Find out more about theAmazon Kindle ebook reader and learn where you can get free Kindle books direct from Amazon’s website.