Proprietary devices need to die

I really do not understand people who buy a Kindle. It is incredibly shortsighted to buy a device for reading books which is tied to a proprietary format and tied to a single store. It's not like the Kindle is even cheap compared to other ereaders and has some serious shortcomings such as its lack of support for other common formats.

Sony hardly has a clean record either but they seem to have snapped out of the delusion that they can dictate formats or standards (Sony formats and standards). The Sony reader is priced about the same as the Kindle but works with lots of book stores. Not only that but it works with various open and closed formats too, such as PDF & epub.

I really hope the industry sees some sense. People are scared by proprietary formats. The reason ebooks have been so down in the dumps for so long is because proprietary readers and formats are ten a penny. Microsoft have had a go, Sony has had a go, Adobe has had a go. People are scared, confused or sitting on the sidelines. The industry needs to rally around a single open format and endorse devices which support it. Open doesn't mean without DRM, but there should be a single DRM that applies to all stores, and all devices, one that is optional and allows reasonable fair use and for people to back / manage their files.

Memory sticks

In reply to the previous 2 posts about Memory Stick Pro, the PRS 300 and PRS 600 both take SD/SDHC cards too... maybe Sony have given up on trying to create a standard?

Not 9.99 per book, and it reads more than just kindle books

Sorry, but a tiny bit of research on the Amazon website should show that not only does it read PDF, MOBI and many more different file types, but that the price of books is not $9.99 each: http://www.amazon.com/kindle/

Yes, some books do cost a tenner. One even costs $140. But I have bought many books for far less than that, and uploaded PDFs, Word documents, audiobooks etc to it easily.

And it works in the UK just fine, even wirelessly over 3G.

Its a great piece of kit, not without its flaws, but it is still worth a look, and even a tiny bit of fact checking would have helped the reporter not spread FUD from Sony about it.

Kindle model is very similar to Apple and iTunes

I believe it can can display PDFs, in the same way that your ipod can play MP3s.

Kindle integrates very nicely to the Amazon store and lets you buy books in their own DRM'd format very very easily... at a mainly fixed price.. again, this is sounding quite familiar.

I can't believe Amazon haven't looked at Apple when building this setup. I wouldn't have thought Apple is too fussed about other people selling books for less. What they care about is that they are the easiest option. Sure you could save a dollar or so hunting about, but I want it now *click*

And once again, once people have got their pile of Kindle-chained reading material they'll be on kindles for the rest of their lives. They'll buy their children/spouse a Kindle so they can share books (ebook sharing is not because they like us).

You buy a Kindle now. A nicer device comes along - your electronic library going up in flames isn't going to make you wish to switch.

This is still just the start of the market though. As with downloaded music, we'll get the waves of rival devices, rival stores - until the point where everybody has an ebook reader and their given away pennies. We'll then have the backlash against the DRM kicking in. Then the disruptors will wade in and the DRM will start to go away once more. For example Amazon now let you buy from them, at less than iTunes and it seemlessly adds itself to your itunes (and therefore ubiquitous iPod). It'll take a few years - but all these devices will start opening up again.

The PC, Windows, Mac or Linux can be the ereader for those that have them.

Why can't ebooks be stored in a PC or laptop and displayed on it.

The PDF format is already available. IBM has for years been distributing its manuals as book reader files on CD. Now I believe they are switching to PDF. I have several IBM mainframe libraries on sets of CDs that would if printed use up all the wall space in my house as bookshelf space.

Perhaps some people would like a more compact device but why can't it be PC based, the still to arrive tablet PC.

If publishers restrict their e-books to particular hardware format then they are shooting themselves in the feet. The fact is that no one will want to lose his e-book library when the proprietary reader breaks down, everyone will want to be able to transfer libraries from one device to another perhaps made by a different manufacturer. if someone makes e-books that will not work on my PC, I will not be buying them.

torrent sites?

eww, that's like so late 90's :p

don't most modern books start off in a digital format, before they ever get near to a piece of dried wood pulp these days?

I'm as shocked as the next guy about how much I've agreed with in this statement from Sony, maybe there are not totally beyond hope after all!

Price of ebooks

I would think that every manuscript received by a publisher in the last 20 years has come in digital form. How long does it take to reformat it? 3 hours max? And then you stick on a server. And they can't make a profit at $9.99? Someone needs to look at their business model ...