MAY 5, 2009 Amazon to Launch Kindle for Textbooks
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and BEN WORTHEN Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124146996831184563.html#mod=testMod Amazon.comInc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter. Beginning this fall, some students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will be given large-screen Kindles with textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar already installed, said Lev Gonick, the school's chief information officer. The university plans to compare the experiences of students who get the Kindles and those who use traditional textbooks, he said. Amazon has worked out a deal with several textbook publishers to make their materials available for the device, Mr. Gonick added. The new device will also feature a more fully functional Web browser, he said. The Kindle's current model, which debuted in February, includes a Web browser that is classified as "experimental." Five other universities are involved in the Kindle project, according to people briefed on the matter. They are Pace, Princeton, Reed, Darden School at the University of Virginia, and Arizona State. An Amazon spokesman declined comment. On Monday morning, the Seattle company sent out invitations to a press event to be held Wednesday at Pace University in New York City. The moves are the latest by Amazon to promote the Kindle, which is the company's first consumer-electronics device. The e-commerce company, which has seen sales of media slow in recent years, has invested in digital distribution of music, video and books. Amazon hasn't said how many Kindles it has sold since introducing the device in 2007, but in an earnings report last month it said that Kindle sales had "exceeded our most optimistic expectations." Amazon has invited several newspaper and magazine publishers, including the New York TimesCo. and Time WarnerInc.'s Time Inc. magazine division, to the announcement Wednesday about the new Kindle, say people familiar with the matter. Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is expected to share the stage with Amazon Chief Executive Jeffrey Bezos at the event, according to a person familiar with the matter. A New York Times spokeswoman declined comment. Dozens of newspaper and magazines subscriptions for Kindle are sold through Amazon, but some publishers have concerns about the arrangement. Amazon controls the relationship with subscribers and dictates pricing. In addition, the current version of the Kindle doesn't display ads, which newspaper and magazine companies rely on for revenue. That has spurred some publishers to back Kindle alternatives and to pursue mobile reading options for smartphones and other portable gadgets. Hearst Corp. is investing in a start-up that's developing an e-reading device, and News Corp., owner of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., is mulling a possible investment in a Kindle competitor. Plastic Logic Ltd. said that it will conduct a trial launch of its 8.5-by-11-inch reading device this summer with the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, daily papers that recently stopped delivery of their print versions most days of the week. A larger-screen Kindle would enable textbook publishers to better display the charts and graphs that aren't particularly well suited to the current device, which has a screen that measures just six inches diagonally. But digitizing academic books could also hurt the thriving market for used textbooks on college campuses. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO MEDIANEWS@ETSKYWARN.NET * *********************************** Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
