TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Can Amazon learn from Microsoft—which, by the way, could be a formidable e-book rival, as shown by the hiring of HarperCollins alum Theresa Horner?

By David Rothman

So will the Kindle be unveiled Monday or Tuesday? Gizmodo and a Wired News blog mention both days as possibilities, while the Wall Street Journal mentions only Monday. Let’s just hope the Kindle indeed appears next week, and that the Kindle is successful, since all of e-bookdom could benefit. Of course, I’d still like to see Jeff Bezos reaffirm a long-term commitment to books—both E and P.

While Amazon has been playing games with the media on various topics, Microsoft, which I’ve never been shy about knocking when Gates & friends deserved it, is doing some things right—and certain of them could be at the expense of Amazon.  Both companies presumably want to be Number One in e-books, and the two war between them could get ugly.

Meanwhile Amazon (headquarters building in photo) could learn a few things from Microsoft. Some odds and ends:

–I’m greatly enjoying Windows Live Writer, the WYSIWYG blogging tool that I’ve ever used. It’s been in an open public beta and now is downloadable. Hint, hint, Amazon. No Kindle-style games here. How frustrating that Amazon, which has skillfully built up an affiliates’ network, didn’t apply the same commonsense to the Kindle launch.

–I am also rather positive about Microsoft’s continued encouragement of its developers as bloggers. Compare that to the Kremlin-style ways of Amazon.com in regard to the launch of the Kindle. Microsoft is hardly open about everything, far, far from it; but the company over the years has definitely made some progress. I hope both Amazon and Microsoft will pay attention to Robert Nagle’s wisdom on the advantages of openness and avoidance of a top-down-approach. Let the buzz build naturally. That’s what Amazon can learn from Microsoft’s blogging community. Laudably Amazon has run authors’ blogs; now what about a Kindle blog, which is what Robert has in mind?

–In another smart move, Microsoft has shown its commitment to e-books through the hiring of Theresa Horner, formerly director of e-book operations for HarperCollins (spotted via Peter Brantley). She’ll work with Cliff Guren, director of publisher evangelism.

Two traits distinguished Theresa in her HarperCollins days, at least as I perceived her. First off, she liked trying out the new, as shown by her house’s recent experiment with video inside a romance book. Second, even if the news wasn’t what I wanted to hear, she always leveled with me. Best of luck to Theresa in her new incarnation. While Amazon may think it’s forever destined to have the biggest e-book catalog, it could be in for some rude surprises if Microsoft keeps making savvy moves such as hiring Theresa.

And some related thoughts: What does it say about the relationship between tech companies and book companies when Microsoft and Google hire seasoned publishing veterans, deeply rooted in the book industry? The old cliche is true. People are indeed publishing’s biggest assets. As this trend continues—Google snapped up at least one Random House e-booker—a power shift is taking place. It can be good in the sense that tech companies can be more sensitive to the better traditions of the book industry. It can be both good and bad in the sense that tech companies are slowly terraforming publishing. On one hand I can envision the tech companies bringing new efficiencies to an industry that urgently needs it. On the other, the more influence certain tech companies gain, the harder it could be to wean big-time publishers off the use of proprietary DRM and e-Babel in general.

The Adobe angle: Content and tech are deeply intertwined, and the more content Microsoft gains control over, the less leverage for Adobe, which has been a major supporter of the IDPF’s .epub standard. The way for Adobe to fight back is to push for a nonproprietary DRM standard, if the big publishers keep insisting on "protection." No DRM or a compromise such as social DRM would be my preference by far.