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Sony and Google in digital books tie-up
19 Mar 2009Sony today teamed up with Google to fight back against Amazon's lead in offering digital books through hand-held electronic reading devices.
The Japanese electronics giant already offers thousands of titles through its eBook store, which customers can download to its Reader device. But today's tie-up with Google extends the total to more than 600,000.
That will pitch it way ahead of rival Amazon's Kindle product, which gives access to just over 245,000 titles plus newspapers, magazines and blogs.
Google has been fighting the Amazon business model — based on selling a range of best-sellers for about £7.50 — by offering free out-of-copyright classics.
Sony Reader users will now be able to read Google's 500,000-strong library of books on their Readers, or by downloading a PDF file to read on a computer.
The library will include the likes of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and Anna Sewell's classic Black Beauty.
