Sony, Google Team Up to Take on Amazon Kindle
In what appears to be a direct shot at the Amazon Kindle, Sony and Google are teaming up to give users of the Sony Reader access to more than 500,000 public domain books from Google Books, Google’s book digitization project, reports the Wall Street Journal. The public domain books will be made available through the Sony eBook Store. The partnership will not be an exclusive one, however.
“We believe the more content that is allowed access to the device, the better the value it is to our customers,” said Steve Haber, Sony Electronics’ president of the Digital Reading Business Division, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon and Sony are vying to lead the market for a new wave of reading devices that they hope will do for online reading what the Apple iPod did for digital music, enabling the successful company to be the leader of producing the devices and distributing the content. The market does appear to be fairly lucrative. Though Amazon won’t release Kindle sales figures, Citigroup, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal, estimates Amazon has sold 500,000 last year. At approximately $350 a pop, that’s a fairly lucrative market—especially considering that Sony has sold 400,000 of its readers at $300-$350 a pop.
Still, $300 for a standalone reader seems like a rather steep price, and Apple’s the elephant in the room. Will there still be a market for a standalone reader if, say, Apple gets into the game, and provides a robust reader application for its iPhone or iPod Touch?
By Robert Pothier