"It's time for The Edge to take its annual dose of public humiliation as we look yet again at how the electronic book has failed to sell during the past 12 months, just as it failed to sell the year before that and, indeed, pretty much ever since The Edge predicted that it was about to become a compelling force.
As it happens, this has probably been the worst 12 months in the short and troubled life of the e-book.
Had it followed the usual arc of technology, the Rocket eBook for which we forked out $500 just over two years ago should by now have been replaced by several generations of devices with a good deal more power for considerably less money. Instead, it remains arguably the most desirable of the dedicated e-book readers - and completely unobtainable.
The reason for this triumph of Gutenberg's technology has much more to do with mismanagement than with the concept of books on the screen.
The Rocket eBook's replacement, the REB 1100, featured less memory, a lower-contrast LCD screen, and a higher price tag than its predecessor. It also lost a considerable degree of utility - RocketWriter, a piece of software that allows users to convert Web pages and personal documents for display on it.
Worse, Henry C. Yuen, chief executive of Gemstar, the company that had taken over the manufacturer of the Rocket eBook, NuvoMedia, and its chief competitor, SoftBook, deleted the free library of e-books that had attracted potential buyers, and tried to funnel all sales through Gemstar's website. He also ensured that the site would lose its attraction to the community of users that had largely driven the demand for e-books by stripping it of unbiased comment and turning it into a mouthpiece for the company.
Yuen's aim was to control the emerging market in e-books. Instead, he practically stopped it....
Last month we learnt that Thomson Consumer Electronics had stopped manufacturing the REB 1100 after dismal sales....
In the long term, Microsoft's plans for a tablet PC may well fulfil the promise that dedicated devices have so far fallen short of meeting. The Edge's hopes, however, rest with the co-founders of NuvoMedia, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. We note that the non-compete clause that Yuen imposed on them will expire this year." [smh.com.au, via useless miscellany]
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
