1

By David Rothman

Bruce Chizen, Adobe CEOBruce Chizen, Adobe’s CEO, gave the standard party line about the future of e-books. Some dialogue with CNET–part of a wide-ranging interview:

Will eBooks ever break out of its niche?

Chizen: Yes.

In our lifetime?

Chizen: Absolutely. I’ve always said the problem was the value proposition of the book versus what was being delivered electronically. What’s been limiting has been the devices….knowing the hardware manufacturers, I would be willing to bet that two or three years from now, you will have a dynamite eBook device for $199 or less.

Well, Bruce, better and cheaper hardware would help, but so would an end to Draconian DRM and the Tower of eBabel. Adobe is hardly the only villain–it’s in part reflecting the wishes of publishers. But face it, DRM is one of the strategies Adobe is using to try to protect its brand. The terrible irony is that Adobe is hurting itself and the rest of the e-book business by making e-books so difficult to use. It isn’t just DRM and a proprietary format. Compared to an XML-CSSish solution, Adobe does not play well on PDAs, cell phones and other gizmos with small screens.

Also of interest–on the positive side: Adobe’s understandable desire to offer online services:

…I…like to think that as broadband does become faster and faster and faster, Adobe will be able to provide those host-based applications in a much better way toward our customers than what Google is able to do. I think Google will be successful for the nonprofessional or the nonenthusiast that aspires to use the same tools as the professional, but as long as we do our job, I think we’ll continue to be successful against Google. Today, we don’t compete.

Perhaps someday a small or even a medium-sized publisher will be able to rely completely on Adobe for format-related services. Fine by me. Online efforts are an example of where Adobe can add value. Proprietary formats and harsh DRM, on the other hand, subtract value.

 
1