iRex to ink deal with major online book retailer to sell the iLiad? Other pacts to follow? How about a BUNCH of seamless iPoddish approaches?
Rumored is an almost-done deal between iRex and a major online bookstore, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes reality. Amazon is selling the Kindle as a convenient, all-in-one e-book system for consumers. So it truly makes sense for closer ties between rival e-bookstores and hardware makers.
iRex’s iLiad would be especially interesting since it comes with wireless capabilities—the better to download e-books directly, even if you must be within range of a WiFi signal. Could we see a bunch of iPoddish approaches in time, not just Amazon’s? That would pour a little cold water on Amazon’s plans and give publishers somewhat more leverage than if Jeff Bezos ruled the e-book roost. Who knows? Might the right alliances help wean independent bookstores off Amazon-owned Mobipocket and move them toward .epub and interoperable DRM—to the cheers of customers fed up with proprietary formats?
Other fun thoughts
Anther interesting thing to ponder is that the iLiad, which I’ve played with, is one helluva piece of hardware that could benefit from easier-to-use software. With bookstore allies, iRex could receive helpful feedback from a variety of sources and maybe other assistance. To return to format issues, perhaps a multistore alliance could work with iRex and other hardware vendors to do a stellar reader for .epub.
If the iRex-bookstore deal closes, it’ll be interesting to see if a hardware-tied book club plan will be part of it, either immediately or in the future. You know—get an iLiad and pay for it over time. That would be in keeping with iRex’s hopes of having newspapers bundle the machine with subscriptions.
Beyond iRex-related deals, I wonder about possible ones for eBook Technologies Inc., which has been more or less silent lately. ETI has a close relationship with Fictionwise and played a leading role in the creation of the .epub standard. So how about Bookeen, home of the Cybook Gen3 machine? Hard to tell. Bookeen’s Laurent Pickard seems pretty confident about his relations with Mobipocket, but then he’s an open standards guy. A happy solution for him would be for Mobi itself to embrace .epub all the way.
The Sony angle
Oh, and do you really think this item would be complete without mention of Sony? It already has an alliance with Borders. Will a WiFi equipped Sony Reader soon have the Connect store or a Borders-related etailer built into it, helping Sony catch up with Amazon? As for the title count, about which Amazon is so proud, keep in mind that indie stories, Borders, Sony and other hardware vendors could all work together to encourage publishers to accelerate their .epub plans.
Major disclaimer: This is fun speculation inspired by one bleepin’ rumor. But if I’ve planted a few ideas in the minds of some of the players, hey, fine.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
If this turned out to be Dymocks, I would be in seventh heaven (it would be the first eink device in Australia for one).
I thought Cybook would be the contender, which would not be bad, but Iliad is something different again, and could justify its price (everything is expensive in Australia) by its extra functionality - it would also be the device most likely to penetrate the education market here, because of its note taking capabilities and extra large screen size.
My fingers are crossed.
December 1st, 2007 at 3:13 pm
The iLiad and Kindle are both using versions of MobiPocket’s Java Reader software for the actual book reading. The Kindle’s interface is much nicer (it can show the Cover Image for example), but that is just software and could be improved on the iLiad if iRex worked on it. Since the iLiad already has tons of fonts pre-loaded, a simple way to make its Reader better than the Kindle’s would be to allow the user to switch fonts. We know this is possible, because the Pepper Pad 3 also has the MobiPocket Java Reader and it allows you to use all the Linux fonts on the device.