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Sony, in a challenge to Amazon's Kindle, unveiled plans on Thursday to do away with the proprietary software on its electronic Sony Reader and convert its e-book store to an industry standard format. Sony said the move "allows it to make its e-book store compatible with multiple devices and its Reader devices open to multiple sources for content."
Sony said it would convert its e-book store to the open ePub format by the end of the year as part of "an effort to take the confusion out of digital book formats."
Sony said it would drop proprietary copy-protection software on the Reader in favor of a cross-platform anti-copying software solution developed by Adobe.
Sony's move is seen as a direct challenge to Amazon, whose electronic books can only be read on the Kindle or on an Apple iPhone using Kindle software.
"Consumers should not have to worry about which device works with which store," Steve Haber, president of Sony's Digital Reading Business Division, said in a statement.
"With a common format and common content protection solution they will be able to shop around for the content they want regardless of where they get it or what device they use," he said.
The ePub format was developed by more than 60 companies and organizations and has received the support of the International Digital Publishing Forum.
Sony noted that dozens of publishers are producing e-books using the ePub standard.
Amazon does not reveal sales figures for the Kindle and chief executive Jeff Bezos said at the annual shareholders meeting in May that the company may never reveal the numbers.
© Wire reports
6 Comments
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DeepAir65
just talking to a friend last night about the problem with Sony is that it sticks to it's propriety formats - hooray!
But will they go on sale in Japan again?
LFRAgain
FINALLY Sony pulls its head out of its nether regions and decides to stop trying to force standards the world isn't interested in on industries that are more than happy to leave Sony behind.
It tried and failed with Mini-Disc -- and wasted a lot of time and energy trying to convince the world that Mini-Disc was the way to go, even after the world had already coughed up a lung to switch vast media libraries over to the Compact Disc format.
It tried and failed with ATRAC digital audio compression -- and ended up getting its head handed to it in the MP3 player wars. Personally, I would have loved to have seen ATRAC become the industry standard. Ithas a far superior compression algorithm. But when MP3 is king, there's not much use in whining about it.
Perhaps the tremendous expense of promoting Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, despite Sony winning out in the end, finally put some sense into the powers that be over at Sony.
Wikikibeach
Once again, Sony invented a "me too" product. Must be desperated and ran out of gas.
nath
LFRAgain, sony hasn't won with Blu-Ray, there's a new Chinese DVD format that is probably going to win.
lostrune2
Sony is also pretty much the only one using the Memory Stick card format it developed, while other cards are becoming cheaper and faster.
Chinese formats only succeed in China. There's a saying in the tech world: if you want something to become a standard, you have to let it go (i.e. don't control it). That's why MP3 succeeded, and the AVI, to name a couple. Anything developed by the Chinese oligarchy won't ever be let go and have everyone a whack at it.
nemoflow
lostrune2; you pretty much nailed it. Good, and fair, opinions :)