Comments on: Amazon, Sony market percentages published: Are they meaningful? Probably not.

By: Aaron Pressman

Aaron Pressman — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:50:03 +0000

It’s very hard to make sensible arguments based on this worldwide market share data without knowing the figures for the US (where Kindle is available) versus the rest of the world (no Kindle). I would suggest that if Kindle has 45% market share worldwide and isn’t even competing in much of the world, that it’s likely very dominant in the US. So in the one market where Kindle and Sony go head-to-head, Kindle is far ahead.

We’re still left with all the usual speculation and arguments about what that means in the future. Does the historical market share predict much about the future when Kindle will available more broadly, Sony has revamped products, Apple’s tablet arrives and other expected new entrants enter?

By: ficbot

ficbot — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:09:08 +0000

I disagree that the Sony is inferior, and I chastise Paul for his American-centric-ness This is my pet peeve of ebook commentary: the Kindle and other ‘wireless’ devices are, thus far, America-only propositions. Sony seems completely uninterested in bringing their new wireless reader to Canada, and Amazon continues non-Americans, not even letting them use the ipod app.

With that said, an Apple Tablet like the rumoured one, which would likely use plain old wifi like an iPod Touch, and run numerous formats through add-in apps, like an iPod Touch, could be the real game-changer, and could kill the Kinde completely. The game isn’t over yet! And wireless America may find that the rest of the excluded world comes up with something better since they can’t play the 3G game just yet anyway.

By: Martin Jenny

Martin Jenny — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:12:39 +0000

The biggest advantage the Kindle has over Sony ist not wireless but the Amazon Store itself just as iTunes is for the iPod. Seamless integration is a very strong selling point and Amazon still has much more interesting books available than the Sony store (Granted, Sony has all those Google Books but, hey, 95% of them are quite obscure and the scan quality of the material is often very bad).
Sony’s eBook Library has gotten somewhat better with the new version but it still is a crapy piece of software (Witness the Mac-compatibility desaster). I’m sure that in the long run epub being open will win out but in the short run Amazon is the better deal.
The good news is that Sony seems to be earnest, churning out new machines, going for lower price points.

By: Bill McHale

Bill McHale — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:06:37 +0000

I think the data presented here is kind of misleading. What is more important is the formats the book readers can read. If a device with a closed format, like the Kindle, becomes dominant, then it will become very difficult for other players to become competitive. On the flip side, if an open standard… including (if we have to have it) and open DRM standard becomes dominant, then the market can remain very competitive.

Though I suspect it would be impossible to find the numbers, a far more interesting number would be how many books are sold in the various formats. I suspect that Kindle will still have the largest share, but I wonder how ePub is doing against legacy formats like Mobi and eReader?

–
Bill

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:21:25 +0000

Overall I very much like Paul’s analysis, especially his skepticism about the numbers. Good job. I wonder if the “others” will catch up and expand that 25 percent.

As for “inferior,” there I’d respectfully disagree with Paul. Kate simply considered other features more important than the wireless.

In some ways, such as privacy and possibly the E Ink display (people have different opinions), the Sony may even be superior.

That said, I myself will welcome wireless if it’s well done.

Thanks,
David
(Proud PRS-505 owner)

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:42:43 +0000

Sony devices are not ‘inferior’ to the Kindle just because they don’t have wireless, an expensive feature many people don’t need.

Kindles and Sonys are different, yes, but Sonys are sturdier, use the ePub format, and allow one to buy ebooks from a number of sources.

And Sony has never accessed my reader or computer to remove items I have bought and paid for.

Wireless may be the most important feature to *you*, but that doesn’t make a wireless-less device inferior.