OStatic

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.

Sony appears to have made a shrewd move in adopting the open ePub standard--and focusing exclusively on it--for its Reader line of digital books and eBook devices. The company's Reader devices competes most directly with Amazon's increasingly popular Kindle, and with the iPhone's eBook capabilities, and many of readers of eBooks are getting books from Amazon, where they can only be read on those devices. Sony also has its own online store for eBooks. While copy protection will still apply in Sony's strategy, here's more on how Sony can benefit from embracing a very popular open standard.