Sony-Google Deal A Win for Openness

Sony Electronics has struck a deal with Google in a major endorsement that makes more than half a million public domain books from its digitization project available for free on the Sony Reader in its e-book store.

The pairing is a hefty blow to Amazon not only because it gives Sony a much larger e-book library than the Kindle store -- more than 600,000 to Amazon's roughly 245,000 -- but also because Google's books are in the open ePub format Amazon doesn't support.

On top of all that, Sony has also dropped the price of its PRS-700 to $350, slightly below the price of the Kindle.

"We have focused our efforts on offering an open platform and making it easy to find as much content as possible," said Steve Haber, president of the Digital Reading Business Division at Sony Electronics. "Working with Google, we can offer book lovers another avenue for free books while still providing a seamless experience from our store."

And in a jab at Amazon, Google is also quick to emphasize the importance this openness in the deal.

"We founded Google Book Search on the premise that anyone, anywhere, anytime should have the tools to explore the great works of history and culture -- and not just when they happen to be at a computer," said Adam Smith, product management director in a press release. "We believe in an open platform for accessing and reading books, and we're excited to partner with Sony to help bring these public domain books to more people."

Many in the publishing industry are pushing for open formats, such as the International Digital Publishing Forum's ePub to become a universal standard in the industry. Meanwhile, the Kindle only supports its proprietary mobipocket-based .azw format, and unprotected .mobi books.

Amazon has told Wired.com that it is open to more file formats, like ePub, but that it would not yet allow for a "seamless customer experience" on all Kindle titles.

The Google books are already downloadable in PDF format, but the Kindle is also behind in the support of this format, which is possible through email but only for an additional fee. Plus it acknowledges that some documents might not format correctly. 

The Google-Sony deal puts a bit more pressure on the e-retailer to drop its walled garden approach and become more open. Google spokesperson also Jennie Johnson told the Wall Street Journal that the deal is not exclusive, and that it was open to the idea of talks with Amazon as well.

Google's big book digitization project was recently green-lighted through a $125 million settlement in its lawsuit with the authors and publishers, who are now working with Google to offer in copyright books as previews or for sale in the search as well.  It also launched a mobile version of its book search in February that allows for anyone with an iPhone or Android phone to read the collection.

While the Google deal is certainly a big endorsement for Sony that will boost them in the long run as Google expands its library, there are still a few technical drawbacks.

The PRS-500, an older model of the Sony Reader, is not compatible with the Google books, and the Sony e-book store is only available on Windows operating systems. And unlike the Kindle, you cannot yet purchase or download titles wirelessly, although Sony has said at the launch of the new Reader that this is also in the works for upcoming models.

See Also:

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• Sony Targets College Students With New E-Book Reader


• Bookworm Gives a Boost to Open-Source ePub E-Book Format