Amazon“Amazon has dropped all ebooks from their UK, French and other international sites. If you want MS-Reader or Acrobat from Amazon in those countries, well, you’re just out of luck at the moment. The sales reps are pointing you to Amazon-owned Mobipocket. Amazon U.S. still offers Lightning ebooks, and probably will for the duration.” – Blackmask.

The TeleRead take: I agree with Blackmask’s David Moynihan as to why Amazon didn’t drop Lightning e-books from the U.S. site. Lightning’s owner, Ingram, “currently ships 25% of all the books ordered from Amazon direct to Amazon’s customers.” And who wants to hassle a gorilla? Oh, but the best is yet to come. Just wait until Amazon tries to favor Mobipocket book over those in other formats. Consumers be damned! In-house brands must come first.

But wait! I suppose there’s always the chance that Amazon will carry other formats if those brands pay the price or if there are anti-trust concerns. No matter what, however, this is a great example of the perils of proprietary formats–especially those owned by giant conglomerates with shareholders to keep happy. Needless to say, if Amazon switched Mobipocket over to a nonproprietary format, it could defuse some of the concerns.

NO COMMENTS

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.