Comments for Consolidation in the EBook Market: Amazon Acquires Stanza

Consolidation in the EBook Market: Amazon Acquires Stanza

2009-04-27T20:35:17Z

Lexcycle, the company behind Stanza, a popular eBook reader for the iPhone, just announced that it has been acquired by Amazon. Amazon, of course, also just released Kindle for iPhone, which is now one of the most popular mobile eBook readers. According to Lexcycle, the company does not plan to make any changes to the Stanza app or user experience because of this acquisition, and Lexcycle will continue its relationships with its content partners. Neither Stanza nor Amazon disclosed the price of the acquisition.

]]> Stanza currently offers about 50,000 titles from partners like the Fictionwise eReader store (which is now owned by Barnes and Noble) and O'Reilly, and another 50,000 free books for sources like Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks. While Lexcycle's most well-known application is Stanza for the iPhone and iPod touch, the company also develops desktop readers for Windows and Mac, which Amazon currently doesn't offer.

It is also noteworthy that Stanza has been a proponent of open eBook standards like EPUB, while Amazon has always kept its system relatively closed. Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Lexcycle announced that it was working together with Adobe to develop an open standard for eBook catalogs, which would make it easier for smaller publishers to offer their books through applications like Stanza (or even the Kindle, if Amazon incorporated this standard).

Overall, this seems like a curious acquisition by Amazon. With the Kindle iPhone app, its hardware eBook reader and its content partners, Amazon could easily compete with Stanza. It will be interesting to see how Amazon will manage to bring the two teams together and what it plans to do with Stanza in the long run. We can only assume that Amazon won't be interested in developing and supporting two different eBook readers.

Comment from Pavlo Zahozhenko on 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T21:23:43Z

Interesting whether Amazon simply buys out the competition or it is something more behind this move.

Comment from Jodi Schneider on 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T21:42:47Z

@"Overall, this seems like a curious acquisition by Amazon. With the Kindle iPhone app, its hardware eBook reader and its content partners, Amazon could easily compete with Stanza."

While the Kindle iPhone app has content, Stanza has usability and user-following. Amazon has no need to compete with Stanza; it needs Stanza's features for its own iphone ebook reader.

Comment from Dana Huff on 2009-04-27

2009-04-28T00:55:17Z

As a Stanza fan, I admit I'm concerned that this means that Stanza will disappear or change, whatever Lexcycle says. Why would Amazon be interested in developing and supporting two eBook readers indeed? One feature I like on Stanza is the ability to download free books from Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks. I fear this means we're going to be paying for downloads of even public domain classics.

Comment from Glenn on 2009-04-27

2009-04-28T03:23:05Z

My concern is that they'll geo-tard this just like their MP3 purchases & the kindle. I would quite happily pay for non-free books, but they've got to let the rest of us non-US people get access!

Comment from Frederic on 2009-04-27

2009-04-28T04:31:57Z

good point Glenn - the culture at Lexcycle seems to be different from how Amazon is behaving in the space. I'm having a lot of trouble trying to grok this acquisition...

Comment from Leo on 2009-04-27

2009-04-28T05:08:23Z

Perhaps this is part of a larger strategy to move into non-Kindle devices. I don't own a Kindle but I'd buy Amazon Kindle content if I could access it from my PC & iPhone.

@Dana - I think removing free content capabilities from Stanza would cause a pretty bad reaction from the current user base. Amazon would have to be pretty silly to alienate the customers it just purchased.

Comment from Gabe Barber on 2009-04-28

2009-04-28T18:59:47Z

As a proponent of local, my biggest concern is the setback this announcement seems to provide the partnership that had been established between the ABA and Lexcycle.

With the ABA recently releasing their Indiebound iPhone app, the plan was to grow this app to allow users to purchase eBooks from their local indie bookstores, and then read them with the Stanza. This seems unlikely now that Amazon owns Lexcycle, as why would the ABA want to partner with the company that has caused their member bookstores so many headaches?

So the ABA and the indie's look to be on their own in moving into this growing segment.