Going to take on Amazon
Search outfit
Google plans to begin selling electronic versions of new books online this
year, and says it will take on market leader Amazon.
A Google spokesman
Gabriel Stricker said in a statement he wanted to build and support “a
digital book ecosystem” to allow “partner publishers” to make their books
available for purchase from any Web-enabled device.
We put the
statement into our “management speak translater” and worked out that it
means that Google is signing up writes and publishers to distribute books
onto web browsers. This will be a lot different from Amazon which pushes
its books onto epaper, which make it easier to read.
However
publishers, particularly newspapers, are likely to be in favour of the idea
because it gives them a secure way of distributing books and newspapers that
are 'off the internet' home page system.
This allows publishers to set
retail prices, unlike Amazon, which lets publishers set wholesale prices and
then sets its own prices for consumers.