Kindle & Nook May Squeeze Sony:
Commentary by Rich Jaroslovsky
Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- As futurist Paul Saffo likes to say, you should never mistake a clear view for a short distance. Case in point: the nascent market for e-readers.
Everyone from desperate publishers to techno-lusting consumers knows what an e-reader should be: a thin, light, affordable tablet with a bright color touch screen, decent battery life and fast wireless access to books, magazines, newspapers and work documents.
A flood of new e-readers will hit the market over the next few months, and none of them will come anywhere close to that vision. E-readers are still in their infancy, saddled with monochrome screens ranging from bad to adequate, and user interfaces that few would describe as elegant. They also have limited flexibility in terms of where you can go for content and what you can do with it once you get it.
That won’t stop millions of people from buying e-readers this holiday season. Forrester Research Inc. recently raised its 2009 estimate for U.S. sales by 50 percent, to 3 million, and said they may double next year. And the level of interest around this week’s announcement of Barnes & Noble Inc.’s new Nook, which won’t be available until the end of November, was positively iPod-worthy.
Up to now, Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle has defined the state of the art, at least until we can lay our hands on and evaluate the Nook and the other new devices headed for the market. Amazon has followed Apple Inc.’s iPod playbook: Produce the hardware, assemble the content and make yourself the conduit for getting the latter to the former.
Going Global
The base model, the Kindle 2, now costs $259 and includes a very readable 6-inch (15-centimeter) screen and wireless 3G connection from AT&T Inc. that allows you to shop for, purchase and download books on the go. The newly introduced AT&T version for the first time makes the Kindle plausible for people living outside as well as within the U.S. Previous Kindles were U.S.- only and used a Sprint Nextel Corp. connection. Amazon initially charged more for the AT&T version; it is now offering rebates to recent purchasers.
No piece of technology I use is more likely to start a conversation with a stranger than the Kindle; there remains huge curiosity about it. That’s both a strength and a weakness: Because it’s available only via mail order from Amazon, you can’t fondle one yourself at the neighborhood Best Buy. Moreover, as more e-books are sold through more sources in more formats, Amazon’s largely closed environment might well become a major liability.
Hands-On Experience
Barnes & Noble says the ability to see and touch a Nook before you buy will be one of its advantages over the Kindle, along with its support for a wider variety of formats.
The new device, which matches the Kindle 2’s price, runs on Google Inc.’s Android smart-phone software and will offer features the Kindle lacks: a color touch screen for navigation and shopping below the monochrome text window, WiFi connectivity to go with its AT&T 3G link, a memory expansion slot and the ability to digitally lend a book to another Nook user.
It will also be a little heavier, won’t run as long on a charge and lacks the Kindle’s physical keyboard.
If there’s a real loser in the Kindle-Nook shootout, it may turn out to be Sony Corp., whose Reader models were already overshadowed by the Kindle and now must wonder if they will end up being eclipsed altogether.
In an effort to get back in the game, Sony recently revamped its product line, with a $199 base model that represents the cheapest entry point into the world of e-readers, and a $299 touch-screen version. Neither version has wireless, so you are tethered to your computer to buy and download books, which must then be transferred to your reader.
Sony’s Hopes
Sony is pinning its hopes on the new Reader Daily Edition, which the company says will go on sale before Christmas. It includes a 7-inch screen, WiFi and AT&T wireless 3G connections, memory-card slots and support for a wider array of formats than the base Kindles.
But the planned price, $399, may just be too high for a device whose screen will be only a bit bigger than the Kindle 2 and Nook, and considerably smaller than the 9.7-inch screen of Amazon’s $489 Kindle DX.
It’s also smaller than the 8.1-inch touch-screen of the new $399 reader promised from iRex Technologies Ltd., a spinoff of Royal Philips Electronics NV, that will start showing up in U.S. Best Buy stores shortly, along with 3G support from Verizon Wireless and books from Barnes & Noble.
Further over the horizon from Silicon Valley startup Plastic Logic is the Que, which is promised for early 2010 and may have the largest screen in the industry, 10.7 inches. Plastic Logic has announced deals with AT&T for wireless connectivity and Barnes & Noble to provide the bookstore back end; pricing hasn’t been announced.
Fewer Details
Even fewer details are available about Alex, announced by an outfit called Spring Design Inc. that, like the Nook, will be based on Google’s open-source Android software and will feature a large color screen for Web browsing below the reader display.
While the e-reader wars continue, the real question may be whether all these products will be overtaken by Apple. The maker of the iconic Macintosh computer and iPhone is rumored to be readying a tablet device for media.
While any Apple device would presumably do more than just read books, history suggests it could swamp the playing field for e-readers just as the iPod did for music players.
You can make an argument that the iPhone already offers a better reading experience than the current generation of dedicated readers. Using the iPhone’s free Kindle and Barnes & Noble apps, books can be purchased and downloaded directly to the phone; the apps also wirelessly sync with the Kindle and Nook hardware, so that each device knows where you stopped reading on the other one.
Whatever Apple’s “it” turns out to be, you can bet it will come closer to the “clear view” model of a media reader.
(Rich Jaroslovsky is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Rich Jaroslovsky in New York at rjaroslovsky@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 25, 2009 00:04 EDT |
