Kindle-format software vs. Stanza: What about Adobe and ePub, David B?
InfoWeek columnist David Berlind wonders if the Stanza e-reader for the iPhone can survive Amazon’s plans to let mobile phones run Kindle-format software. The Other David is no dummy, and he’s really asking a question rather than making a flat statement. Still, I’d be more optimistic about Stanza than he is.
1. Amazon may have 230,000 books and other items available, compared to Stanza’s 100,000, but many are on the obscure side. And as I see it, Stanza’s developers, at Lexcycle, can catch up in time through alliances.
2. Guess which software will be able to read Adobe-DRMed PDF books. Hint: it isn’t the Kindle software. DRMed PDF isn’t my favorite format, but like jellyfish. there’s sure a lot of it. In fact, I wonder there might even be more than 230,000 books in the Adobe format.
3. Stanza can also read non-DRMed ePub now and will be able to read the Adobe-protected kind very shortly, thanks to the SDK that Adobe is making available.
In the end, it isn’t just Stanza/Lexycle vs. Amazon. It’s Adobe and Stanza/Lexycle, both, against Amazon—much more of an even match than David B. might suppose.
Related: Adobe’s new e-book software ratchets up fright against Amazon Kindle: The new Adobe Reader Mobile SDK is aimed at smartphones and handhelds, in Computerworld.
Also check out David Berlind’s audio interviews with Lexycle’s Neelan Choksi and with O’Reilly’s Andrew Savikas, the latter of whom discusses book plans for the Stanza/iPhone market among other topics.
(IW article found via a Tweet from Kat Meyer.)
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