E-Book Ecosystem Should Look to Open Source

by Sam Dean - Oct. 21, 2009Comments (3)

Although it's tough to get on a plane or a train these days without seeing someone reading an e-book, typically using Amazon's Kindle, e-book readers were hardly an overnight success. I remember seeing them 10 years ago, maybe a few years before that. It took a long time for design, capacity, book delivery infrastructure and other issues to start making them a success. Now, open source and open standards are starting to take their rightful place in the growing e-book market. Barnes and Noble's new Android-based Nook e-book reader (seen here) is a case in point.

Our friends over at JKOnTheRun, who evaluate a whole lot of mobile devices, have pronounced that Barnes & Noble's $259 Nook is so good it "knocks the Kindle to the curb." It has a 6-inch E-Ink screen that is augmented with a small color LCD touchscreen at the bottom. The Nook has free 3G via AT&T which is used to shop for and download books to the reader, and it can be synced with other devices.  (It does not have a browser, though.)

From an open source perspective, it's really notable that the Nook is Android-based. While there is much hubbub going on about Android as a smartphone operating system, it's going to arrive in many other types of devices. With an open source operating system at the core of the Nook, Barnes & Noble has the opportunity to seek out community-built applications for its device.

Sony, too, has caught on to the promise of openness in the e-book race. In an effort to pick up market share for its Reader line of e-book devices, the company recently embraced the open ePub standard.  While copy protection is still in place for most books intended for the reader, Sony's move allows users to have flexible access to many free books in the ePub format. Over time, I have no doubt that open source operating systems, applications, and open formats will have a big influence on the e-book market. 


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3 Comments
 

Today B&N and Adobe announced an alliance that has B&N embracing ePUB and PDF standards, as well as B&N's handling of any Adobe DRM protected material. This brings B&N past Sony in this area and positions B&N as the one to beat in ebooks, far ahead of Amazon.


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It does make sense for B&N to be open, given that they are the followers in the market. Amazon will continue to keep their standards closed for now, I presume. They (Amazon) have so much more mindshare in this market, though. Let us see if Barnes has the financial muscle to out-market Amazon!


0 Votes

Don't think Barnes has that kind of muscle IMO.


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