I’m sure this is a hangover from the same market hesitation that brought the traditional publishing industry to the desperate straits we find it in. One can only hope that these industry leaders in the new publishing age will stop playing it safe, and start taking some chances.
This PCWorld story from our friend Jorgen offers a status report on a lacklustre eBook Reader competition. Amazon was/is the front-runner in the eBook Reader revolution, having released now their third version of the Kindle eBook Reader. Each generation of the device has been plagued with a short-fall of supply (playing it safe–order, build and ship) that created an opening for other companies like Sony and Barnes & Noble to use to their advantages, launching their own devices on the wave of interest created, interestingly enough, by Kindle.
Now, as the eBook Revolution charges into its first really explosive Christmas, Sony and Barnes & Noble have run out of machines. (Order only, receive after Christmas.) Was it fiscal cowardice or caution? Who cares? The end result is they’re going to lose BIG TIME during the biggest selling season, and their supply shortfall has ironically opened a door for the Kindle.
God! I wish this was a story that highlighted more heroic efforts. Anyway, the PCWorld story reports Amazon adding (the long-awaited) PDF support to its Kindle. This should help to re-orient the device for home or office use, and guarantee wider scale adoption for the broader marketplace. Coming at a time when the main competitors have left themselves dead-in-the-water without product, it may help Kindle regain some of the lead that it has lost.
So, a lot of accidents and default’s, yah?
