diglib: more on ebooks

["JQ Johnson" <jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

From today's news:

ADOBE TARGETS EDUCATION, PROFESSIONAL MARKETS FOR E-BOOKS
Adobe, which yesterday released its new Acrobat eBook Reader 2.0 software,
says the future of the e-book market lies in targeting students and
business workers with Internet-connected computers. "We believe that the
early adopters are people who have a value for time saving, and reducing
the bulk of papers they lug around," says Michael Looney, Adobe's senior
director of e-books. Analysts tend to agree: "We see those as the growth
markets that are going to bleed over into the consumer market," says an
IDC
analyst. And while rivals Microsoft and RCA/Thomson are racing to convert
popular titles into their respective e-book reader formats, Adobe hopes to
capitalize on the large number of documents already available in PDF
format. "The vast majority of books that are printed today already exist
in
PDF," says Adobe e-book group product manager Kevin Nathanson. "If [a
publisher] already [has files stored in] PDF, you have a pretty good
e-book
right off the bat. The costs of conversion are practically nil." Adobe's
e-books can also be printed out -- a plus over competitors' products, says
the company. Adobe's Content Server product enables publishers to dictate
whether users can print the e-books, copy them, or have them read aloud.
(Wired.com 29 Jan 2001)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,41249,00.html