Wrong target for e-books in Asia
The caveat is that academic users are not using the traditional e-books that require expensive dedicated electronic readers. Instead, users tote ordinary notebooks and PDAs, to access unprotected digital documents that can be shared freely--in other words, the users are enjoying e-books using versatile non-proprietary devices, in the true spirit of information sharing at low cost.
Even then, only countries in Asia with strong Information Technology can afford to try e-books out. Educational institutions in countries like Singapore and Japan are eagerly testing electronic books.
It therefore doesn't take much imagination to see that Asia, with its current state of IT and economic reach, high piracy potential, lower preference and literacy rate for English, is definitely not a prime candidate for e-books devices within the next five years.
Scene 3 Take Note:
E-books in Asia? Wrong target!
Just because consumers are not buying e-books and e-book devices doesn't mean publishers are not investing in the game.
Microsoft is buying into the e-book concept with big names such as Penguin Books, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Bertelsmann, HarperCollins Publishers and the like. Bertelsmann, which owns Random House and has a stake in Barnesandnoble.com, also has committed US$16.5 million over three years to milk money out of the technology.
Let's not for one moment think the publishers are not aware that saddling e-book devices with complex anti-piracy technology won't help speed consumer adoption. Software readers, such as the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader Plus V2.0, do not allow someone to read the same e-books from more than one computer or to copy e-book data files from one computer to another.
