Frankfurt launch for Amazon Kindle? Plus—how much more clueless can p-publishers get about E?
“Speculation is mounting that Amazon will unveil its long awaited ‘Kindle’ e-book reader at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The device is reportedly equipped with a wireless modem allowing users to browse the internet without connecting directly to a computer. It is also reported to have a small keyboard allowing for internet navigation as well as a scroll wheel to help users flick through text.” – Bookseller.com.
The TeleRead take: When will p-book people get a grip on reality? “From the sound of it, publishing execs are pinning quite a bit of hope on Amazon and its device, with one even going so far as to [say] that ‘if these guys can’t make it work, I see no hope,’” Bookseller.com qutoes Engadget. Yikes!
Isn’t Amazon/Mobipocket the same company whose DRM server was down for a week or so? And what about the possibility that the Kindle might sell for considerably more than the Sony Reader? It’s hard to say what the fate of the Kindle will be—perhaps the device will do well enough to let Amazon bully publishers even more than the company does today—but it’s clueless, clueless, clueless to tie the fate of the whole bleepin’ industry to one company and one device.
I’m more than disappointed—I’m angry. Wittingly or unwittingly, some P book people are setting up the E book business for another bust.
(Via MobileRead.)
September 13th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
DRM aside I would not be caught dead using the device as seen in the picture. It does not look at all comfortable to hold. In fact It looks like something designed in the 50s.
Maybe, maybe, someday there will be standard DRM to go with the open format. Only then will we see an inexpensive reader. I think it is possible to build a device acceptable to most people interested in eBooks for $200 today. But it is destined to fail as long as it must conform to a proprietary DRM scheme. And it is destined to fail if it does not support DRM because nothing from major publishers will be available.
Dana
September 14th, 2007 at 6:19 am
I’m going on the assumption that the picture is a prototype (because if it’s not, I wholeheartedly agree with the above)…
If the Kindle – about which, let’s be honest, we know next to nothing – really does have all the whiz-bang wifi features being touted, then it’s going to cost a bit, but I can’t see a reason why it shouldn’t equal or even beat Sony’s price. But the main point is that it’s an e-ink device – are you really going to want to surf anything other than Amazon’s ebook store with it? Ugh.
If they haven’t learnt the lessons of the Sony Connect store when it comes to DRM, then they don’t deserve to succeed, but it’s all idle speculation anyway. I still think the iphone/ipod will be the ipod for books eventually, but roll on Frankfurt…
September 14th, 2007 at 10:33 am
That’s a keyboard from an IBM PS1, isn’t it?
The device looks like a Commodore PET that’s been on the losing end of a battle with a steam roller.
September 14th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Oops, of course I meant “a keyboard from an IBM PcJr, not a PS1.