At BEA we had a chance to check out the BeBook e-reader, produced in Holland and headed for distribution in the US market. CEO Johan Hagenbeuk said that he is having discussions with a number of potential partners, including both major retailers and publishers themselves. While his line of devices offers prices competitive to Cool-er (and less than Sony Reader and Kindle), he’s looking to encourage cellphone-style service models that subsidize the price of the reader in exchange for a contract to buy a certain amount of content. Hagenbeuk suggested that he company is very close to launching a simple […]
eNews
eNews: The Next Big thing for NetBook Screens?
Taiwan company Pixel Qi now has a demonstration video of what some people see as the next big innovation in screen technology. It’s an LCD screen that has electronic paper qualities and can display three different ways. As PC World describes it, it has “a black-and-white e-ink mode for reading text documents and e-books, and two color modes, designed for use indoors or in bright sunlight, that are more suitable for Web surfing and video playback. E-ink mode extends battery life by shutting off the backlight, and is intended for reading e-books, documents, Web sites or blogs and other text-based […]
HMH Creates Digital Team; RAND Drops eBook Prices; SuperKindle Release, and More
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade and reference division has created a Digital Strategy and Planning Group, led by svp Cheryl Cramer Toto (who had been the company’s vp of development and planning, a job that included leading the integration of Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin). Under Toto are vp of digital content development David Jost, vp of digital business development David Langevin, and Sanj Kharbanda, who has been promoted to vp of digital market strategy. He “will identify unique market opportunities for Houghton digital content and develop and implement innovative consumer-facing programs.” Yesterday the RAND Corporation announced they were lowering list price […]
Bezos: No Profits (?), No Color, No Stats
Missed during BEA madness was Jeff Bezos’s webcast speech to Amazon shareholders last Thursday. At least as interpreted by some, Bezos seemed to indicate that Kindle isn’t making money for the company yet (despite wild analysis by Wall Street analysts who don’t understand the business). Bezos said the company “is investing very heavily” in its digital business but “I don’t want people to think it’s a big cash-flow generator for us.” Speaking of the company’s businesses in China and cloud computing he said they were in “investment mode” and added, “we continue to plant these seeds and our experience — […]
Closer Reading of Google Edition
The NYT reported on Google’s continuing discussions with publishers of their plans to sell online access to the full text of some books currently available for searching and limited reading in their Partner Program with publishers. An offline component, similar to Google Gears, will allow purchased books to be cached in the browser. And Google has indicated to publishers that they will allow some form of limited printing (done a single page at a time) and limited copy and paste privileges, probably in the range of 20 percent of a book’s content. Now dubbed Google Edition, this initiative is the […]
Screen-Maker PVI to Acquire E Ink for $215
Here’s a sign of the actual (and anticipated) growth of the market for e-readers: Prime View International, the company the manufactures the screens for both Kindle and the Sony Reader, is buying E Ink. “The new company will expand capacity and develop improvements for ePaper display screens that are easy on the eyes, long-lasting, and highly portable.” (PVI bought Philips Electronics’ ePaper business in 2005.) Interestingly, the company quotes in their press release iSuppli analyst Vinita Jakhanwal, saying “the market for electronic book devices such as the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle is forecasted to grow from 1.1 million units […]