CES 2012: No News is Good News for Publishers

i M reporting from CES 2012 in Las Vegas.  For publishers, the fact that there is no overpowering new publishing platform announcement from the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show is good news.  Yes, some new tablets were announced.  And there were a few with new (and surprising) display sizes such as the 5 x 5 and the 4 x 4.  But in general, the trend is to add a few new tablet products that can be differentiated by new features or price, but that have little if any impact on the number of new tablet editions that publishers will have to produce.
Also of note is the shift of products classified as eReaders from eInk platforms to multifunctional tablet platforms.  Very few, if any, traditional eInk eReaders were found at CES 2012.  This makes sense because CES is a “new” or “emerging” technology show and eReaders are old news.  Last year IDPF was a CES Partner and hosted an eBook TechZone on the show floor.  This year IDPF was notably absent.  As I perused the booths listed as eReaders, I also asked about the eReader software being employed.  Not one of the booths that I visited boasted EPUB3 support.  I guess we will have to wait for BEA at Javits for announcements of EPUB3 technologies.

Posted in |

0 comments: