Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading business division, said: "Within five years there will be more digital content sold than physical content. Three years ago, I said within ten years but I realised that was wrong - it's within five."
He said the same patterns that Sony had seen in the digitisation of music and photography were now being repeated in the books market. ...
Sony believes that the ebook market has now passed the point of no return. Haber said: "I have multiple meetings with publishers and tell them paradigm shifts happen. You can say fortunately or unfortunately you haven't had a paradigm shift in, what, hundreds of years."
He added: "We in the consumer electronics area have a paradigm shift every year or two."
The Sony Reader range consists of two models in Europe - the Sony Reader Touch and the Sony Reader Pocket. In the US there is a third model - the Sony Reader Daily Edition, which is larger and offers wireless connectivity.
While Sony sees its devices as “immersive” readers, Haber says there is room for multi-function devices too, such as Apple’s iPad, which offers a range of ebook-reading apps. Recent research for Sony in the US by Marketing and Research Resources found that 11 per cent of iPad owners bought the device primarily for reading. ...
