Amazon to Allow ePub eBooks on the Kindle e-Reader

With many companies all telling us the same thing off the record it is confirmed that the Amazon is moving in this direction.

The lack of epub used to be the reason not to go with a Kindle, but in the last year or two other reasons have sprung up. This is possibly great news for a contingent of digital readers who don’t like their Sony’s or Nooks, but it’s also a news item that holds far less weight than it would have in 2009. Like the article suggests, Kindle isn’t an ebook reader so much as a platform, and that platform is available on so many devices that it no longer seems like Amazon has created a walled garden.

You still won’t be able to read your epub Amazon books on your Sony Reader (at least, I highly doubt it). To do that, Amazon would have to cede control of its rights management to Adobe, creating a step in between the customer and the product that Amazon customers aren’t used to. Having one format only matters if that format is transferrable.

As for the other reasons that have sprung up, each ebook reader has made unique cases for themselves. The Nook has transformed into an Android tablet, and the Sony Readers all have really cool touch screens and stylus capabilities (great for highlighting, note taking, and margin-doodling—really, all the things people still like real books for). I wouldn’t say either platform has blazed ahead of the Kindle for these things (they certainly haven’t) but that the conversation hasn’t been about file formats in a long time.