Sony steps up to the plate by announcing partnership with Google

We all know that Amazon.com is the world's largest online library, but now Sony is taking a stab at conquering the competition. The company announced Thursday that it will be entering a partnership with Google to make .5 million non-copyrighted books available for their digital Reader device. Sony's Reader is a rival machine to Amazon's Kindle and Kindle 2, an increasingly popular product I recently blogged about. Google has a collection of about 7 million digital books, but currently can only make full copies of texts written before 1923 whose copyrights have expired. Sony hopes that by teaming up with Google it can expand their virtual library and become a more promising competitor to the Kindle, which offers about 250,000 titles, featuring mostly best sellers and popular reads.



Honestly, while I do give Sony an A for effort on combating the competition, I feel like in the long run it may just be a lost cause. Here's why: when people think books, they don't think Sony. Or even Google, really, for that matter. They think Amazon. Amazon has everything consumers want; they offer a quick, easy, and reliable shopping experience, reasonable prices on most items, and an insanely large and vast variety of merchandise. People trust Amazon, especially when it comes to literature. Sony doesn't have that relationship with these types of customer. Sure, they have have the hearts of bright-eyed sports fanatics in dire need of the latest flat screen or the small sector of consumers who still purchase and value cd players, but that's not exactly the type of target market for the Reader. The brand equity just isn't there.

However, I could be wrong. Everything Google touches turns to gold and they will probably end up taking over the world (nation-wide wireless hot spots, step one). Depending on how quickly they can begin supplying the masses with more than just the classics, the better their chances of success in this deal with Sony. But with Amazon already popping out the Kindle 2 earlier this year, they have a lot of catching up too. Without the Twilight series or whatever is on Oprah's Book Club list this month, Sony (with or without Google's aid) could very well get left in the dust on this one.




http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/technology/19sony.html?bl&ex=1237694400&en=c98cbbdc54d8b635&ei=5087%0A