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By David Rothman

doctorow_150x224 The Kindle and the Sony Reader are the rage among many publishing pros—no longer is the focus as much on PDAs and cellphones. You already know about PW editor Sara Nelson’s famously mourned Kindle.

But long term, could the pros be making a mistake, a big one, when cell phones number more than a billion and dedicated e-readers are only in the tens of thousands?

I’ve argued that in the past, while noting that displays on cell phones will get much better. Now along comes Cory Doctorow with a Lotus column headlined: Put not your faith in ebook readers. Jeez, Cory sounds almost biblical, causing me to wonder whether his stubble should be a full beard. Here’s my reading on the Doctorow column.

Where Cory’s right

Yes, people favor multifunction devices, especially those they can carry in their pockets. Not everyone wants to mess with both a Kindle and a cell phone. The real future will be in phones with roll-out E Ink screens or other improved displays that can do justice to e-books. E Ink in the next few years will offer color and higher speeds, not to mention lower costs. Meanwhile, given the choice between no books and those displayed on small screens, many consumers will prefer cell phones if the books are there and are marketed well. Not all phones, granted, can work right now with e-books. But that will change.

I also agree with Cory that book reading isn’t as popular, at least here in the States, as it used to be—but what about the potential market in developing countries?

Furthermore, Cory correctly acknowledges that books will remain a large niche item, and his big point is that the multiuse approach will count more than single-use, Kindle-style gizmos. While you can use the Kindle for Web browsing, books are the machine’s real raison d’etre.

With multiuse, however, the economics of manufacturing become far more attractive than for single-use devices. There are issues such as whether people can focus on e-books when the other uses beckon, but as cell phone screens become more paperlike, books should be more enticing.

No, I’m not saying dedicated Kindle-style readers will die off, and in fact, in the Boing Boing blog, Cory softens his big premise with the headline Why hardware ebook readers are a dead end (for now anyway). Yes: for now. But the big action long term will be in cellphones.

Where the stubbled Prophet is wrong

Cory says the capacity of Chinese factories to make high-quality items is limited and could be a bottleneck for e-book gizmos. That could be a mistake in two respects.

First, the real bottleneck for now seems to be in E Ink displays made by PVI, but this will change as production ramps up—and keep in mind, too. some E Ink alternativea as Nemoptic-based technology.

Second, don’t underestimate the Chinese. I can remember dining in 1985 with a U.S. State Department expert on the economics of high tech in Asia. He assured me that China lacked the capability to churn out high-quality computer products. Well, I don’t have to tell you the rest of the story.

So, yes, I think that Chinese factories will be able to make e-book hardware a lot more cheaply than they can today. The Chinese are no longer just depending on low-cost labor: they’re automating. In the long run, then, any manufacturing bottlenecks in China are temporary, and e-reader prices should drop dramatically. Cory should have dwelt more on such inevitabilities. Even short term, why would Amazon be so energetically pushing the Kindle if it didn’t think that new shipments would soon be on the way? Maybe they won’t be. But my hunch is that the situation might dramatically change in the next few months.

Cory and the DRM angle

In evaluating Cory’s reading, keep in mind his abhorrence of the DRM of the kind found in the Kindle and Sony Reader, and in fact, I myself see DRM as a literary and commercial toxin for e-books.

That said, could the association of DRM with the Kindle and Sony Reader be one reason why Cory isn’t so gung-ho on such devices? Could this factor influence his assessments of their potential? Of course, DRM in itself detracts from the value of books purchased for such readers. You’re at the mercy of Amazon or Sony or other vendor—what if they give up on e-books, perhaps after losing out to vendors with more advanced technology to allow books to be read on cellphones? No guarantees. What’s more, you can’t read DRMed books for the Kindle and Sony on, say, cellphones and PDAs. But again, let’s be objective about Amazon and Sony.

Where America‘s gone wrong

Here’s an aside. By now, there could have been a large market for American-made e-book hardware. One of the goals of the original TeleRead plan was to use schools and libraries to help seed the market for low-cost, multifunction machines for e-books and other purposes. Years later, One Laptop Per Child exists. Now guess where the OLPC machines are being made. Yes—of course: Asia. This far into the game, I wouldn’t expect anything else. If you’re in the e-book business, you probably haven’t much choice other than to turn to the mainland or Taiwan, and thanks to automation, as noted, their manufacturing capabilities are only going to get better.

For a different perspective: Alex’s MobileRead commentary on Cory’s premise.

 
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