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By David Rothman

“There was a format war. They compete and are not compatible. That creates resistance.” – David Steinberger, HarperCollins president of corporate strategy and international, discussing e-books.

The TeleRead take: You think e-books are living up to their potential? Well, consider some other zingers from today’s Reuters article headlined Bubble bursts for electronic books.

“Expectations were widely overblown at the time of the Internet bubble,” said British publisher Helen Fraser, managing director at Penguin.

“But there is a small market for them and it may grow as different reading devices appear on the market. Sales do go up month by month,” she told Reuters.

She said if Penguin sold 40,000 copies of a printed book, it would typically shift 4,000 audio books of the same title and 400 e-books.”

Immediately following the Fraser quote and just before the Steinberger one, Reuters observes: “In the technological battle to find the perfect way to read electronic books on your palm-top or personal computer, competing formats have put the consumer off.”

True, true, true! High time for a Universal Consumer Format without all the horrors of the proprietary approach–especially those of Microsoft Reader!

Meanwhile I hope the Steinberger quote encourages Winston Smith. The eTower of Babel–very much related to the use of proprietary encryption schemes–has frustrated publishers along with readers. The only real winners are the software companies, not the book publishers. Microsoft and Adobe and Palm Digital Media are prepared to slug this one out for years, with scant regard for the welfare of the book industry.

Judging from TeleBlog fans, the Palm Digital Media approach, relying on credit-card-based encryption rather than the machine-based variety, is easier on readers than the Draconian Microsoft one. But it’s still no substitute for a UCF. Perhaps PDM can come around eventually and pitch in toward the development of a consumer-friendly standard.

(Via eBookAd.)

Update: Sternberger has moved on to Perseus Books.

 
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