NYT: Sony abandona seu formato de e-book, para adotar o ePub

Essa notícia saiu no New York Times. Alguns trechos logo abaixo.

Resumo: até o final do ano, a Sony irá abandonar seu formato proprietário de e-books (o BBeB) para ficar só no padrão ePub, internacionalmente reconhecido. Essa é uma notícia incrível para os fãs de e-books, porque significa PORTABILIDADE LITERÁRIA: o leitor não vai ficar preso só à livraria da Sony. Vai poder ler livros que adquiriu em outros lugares. A maioria dos aparelhos de empresas menores já faz isso, usando o ePub. A Sony é a primeira grande empresa do mercado de e-readers a dar esse passo.

Agora só falta a Amazon. Amazon? Jeff Bezos? Vocês vão virar história. Se não seguirem o exemplo da Sony, e deixarem o Kindle ler livros em ePub comprados ou baixados em qualquer lugar, ao invés da sua loja de  livros monopolista, os leitores vão terminar abandonando seu castelo. Ainda mais depois do que aconteceu com os livros do Orwell, que foram deletados dos aparelhos das pessoas sem aviso algum…

Trechos da matéria do NYT:

After the change, books bought from Sony’s online store will be readable not just on its own device but on the growing constellation of other readers that support ePub. Those include the Plastic Logic eReader, a thin device that has been in development for nearly a decade and is expected to go on sale early next year.

“There is going to be a proliferation of different reading devices, with different features and capabilities and prices for a different set of consumer requirements,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading unit. “If people are going to this e-book shopping mall, they are going to want to shop at all the stores, and not just be required to shop at one store.”

Sony’s move comes amid mounting concern about Amazon’s market power in the budding category of electronic books.

Companies like Sony and Adobe do not want to abandon anticopying measures, fearing that piracy of books would run rampant. Rather, they want to push the e-book industry toward common standards to avoid a replay of Apple’s domination of the digital music business.

Early this decade, Apple sold music from its iTunes store that was protected by its own FairPlay software and could be played only on the iPod.

The result was what is known as “lock-in.” Apple built up extraordinary market power and leverage to dictate terms to the major music labels on matters like the price of digital songs. Then, as now, second-tier players banded together to promote the increased flexibility and choice that open standards gave to consumers.

“If the business terms and conditions end up being dictated to publishers by one bookseller who has a chokehold over the value chain, publishers are going to have a hard time staying profitable,” said Bill McCoy, general manager for Adobe’s digital publishing business.

Mercado com concorrência de verdade é assim: no fim das contas, as empresas se rendem ao desejo dos consumidores. Não conheço nenhum leitor que queira ficar preso a uma só empresa, ou a um só aparelho, para ler seus livros. Viva a concorrência!