I won’t be rushing to grab a Sony Reader

Hi everyone.

Sony recently announced its Sony Reader, a dedicated e-book device. This caught my attention for two reasons. First, I am a big fan of, and even activist for, e-books. I do almost all of my book reading electronically, only picking up a paper book when there is not an e-alternative.

Second, I was intrigued by the announcement because of a story I wrote about e-books more than two years ago. A senior director at Simon & Schuster Online had this to say about reading devices: “The introduction of [dedicated reading devices] will be the next point of explosive growth in the e-book industry. If you’re looking one to three years from now, the multifunction PDA is really the place where the big growth in e-books is going to happen, but if you look three to six years from now then dedicated devices will become very compelling.”

I didn’t really buy that opinion then and I still don’t. I have little interest in spending money on a device that only does one thing. And I think this opinion is borne out by the industry: PDA manufacturers sell thousands of devices every day but the total PDA user community is still only a fraction of the overall population. If the industry can’t sell everyone a multifunction device — one that displays books but also manages all the basic PIM stuff, etc., etc. — how can it sell a device that basically just reads books? Yes, dedicated readers like Sony’s may also play MP3s but this is an add-on, not core functionality. The device is not going to replace iPods.

But, some argue, a dedicated device will deliver a superior reading experience: the screen may be nicer, the buttons designed for navigating a book. If true this may be a compelling sales factor, but only if the cost is low. I may pay for that improved functionality but I won’t pay too much.

So how much is the Sony Reader going to cost? US$349. That’s way too much for a little incremental improvement.

But the price isn’t even the biggest problem. The biggest problem is the Reader uses a new e-book file format. The device reads books in the BBeB Book (Sony Librie) format. Now, how many of you have a big library of BBeB books? Hands up please. The Reader also handles books in the PDF format, but there just aren’t enough of these for me to care.

I read books in the Palm format, which means I can view them on a Palm PDA, a Windows PDA, a Symbian device, a PC or a Mac. To travel Sony’s path I would have to toss all those books out.

If Sony included support for any of the open standards — Palm or Mobipocket, even Microsoft Reader — then this device would be far more attractive.

As a proponent of e-books I support any initiative that brings new readers to the fold. Sony Reader won’t do that. Its proprietary e-book format on top of its price is simply too much to swallow.

- Peter Wolchak, Associate Writer (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)