Monday November 2, 2009 – Stewart Wolpin
With the introductions of the Barnes & Noble Nook, the IREX Reader, the coming Plastic Logic Que proReader (TBA at CES in January) all enjoining the Amazon Kindle and the varying Sony Readers, e-book readers have entered the ballyhoo and hoopla phase of media and gadget geek mindshare.
And further ballyhoo and hoopla will accompany Apple's rumored early 2010 launch of its tablet PC and how it will affect the e-book market.
My response to all this e-book v. tablet PC ballyhoo and hoopla is folderol and balderdash.
E-readers are likely to be this year's version of personal navigation device (PND), which enjoyed its own short-lived ballyhoo and hoopla period.
Let's start with e-book reader sales. Forrester forecasts just 3 million e-book readers will be sold this year, 10 million next year.
A tidy little business to be sure, and certainly the ballyhoo and hoopla surrounding each new e-reader introduction helps spread the e-book gospel a bit further.
But just as consumers discovered they didn't need a standalone PND, they also will discover they don't need a separate $259 e-reader since they likely have one already: an iPhone/iPod Touch, an Android, a Palm Pré or a BlackBerry, or a laptop or netbook PC. All of these smartphones and varying portable PCs offer multiple e-reader apps.
In 2010, a variety of sources estimate that 328 million smartphones will be sold, and a large percentage of these will be the app-happy models mentioned previously.
And it is estimated that shipments of over 180 million portable PCs in 2010, with DTC estimating about 35 million of those will be netbooks.
Between smartphones and portable netbook PCs, we're talking a total of about 514 million e-reading capable devices in 2010, compared to maybe 10 million standalone e-readers. This is like marveling at the suddenly perfect kite-flying breeze – blithely ignoring the F5 tornado behind it.
Equally silly is the speculation surrounding Apple's long-rumored tablet PC. "Experts" have been predicting the domination of the tablet PC for nearly a decade, and they've never been right. Even with the emergence of multi-touch touchscreen technology mainstreamed by Apple and the iPhone, no one has yet made a case why the average technology customer would spend $600-$1000 on a tablet with an exposed 10-inch screen and no physical keyboard when only slightly less cool but far more functional netbooks are half that price.
In other words, technologists are vigorously debating whether a technology the market has shown it's not interested in (tablet PCs) will challenge a product that only a few well-heeled people want (e-book readers).
E-readers have definitely sparked a revolution in how people acquire and read books. But it will be already purchased multifunction devices – smartphones and portable PCs – that will serve more frequently as our e-reader.
