Platform Wars Come to the Book Business

[Terry Ehling <ehling@cornell.edu>]

An eloquent and astute dispatch from Joe Esposito on what it
means to play chess with the masters.

http://j.mp/afHVQK

"[T]hree technology giants - Amazon, Apple, and Google - are now
implicating the book business in their attempt to establish a
technical platform. These are big players - and, more
importantly, smart players - for whom books are the equivalent of
software applications.

"The idea is simple - get enough books running on your platform,
and everyone will want to have access to that platform.

"The risk for publishers, if not the likelihood, is that they
will become collateral damage."

terry ehling
scholarly communications strategist
project euclid | cornell university library
ithaca [ny] =A014853
ehling@cornell.edu