Kobo Books, the open ebook store that’s gunning for iBooks on the Apple iPad and the Amazon Kindle, launched earlier this week. Now Michael Serbinis, Kobo’s CEO, has made his predictions for the future of ebooks in 2010 – time for a “super” Amazon Kindle, Google’s ebook store and a Google tablet to go with it?
Serbinis says Lab126, the holding company which Amazon uses to build the Amazon Kindle, has hired a vast amount of hardware engineers (“enough…to launch a smartphone, tablet and a line of high efficiency home appliances.”)
While Serbinis is not suggesting Amazon’s about to fling out a fridge, he thinks the increase in staff points to a “Super” Kindle and blames the New York Time as the original source of the hype.
As for Google, he believes its ebook store Google Editions will be announced again with much fanfare (after being trailed last year) and that a Google tablet will arrive at the same time (if only an image ahead of a proper launch). Google’s shown a Google Chrome OS tablet concept already, so it’s not a bad prediction.
Other predictions from Serbinis include the arrival of the sub-$100 ebook reader (Marvell claims it will deliver a £60 ebook reader in 2010) and publishers starting to consider ebook sharing (a much trickier one to predict).
Give us your predictions for the future of ebooks. Do you think 2010 will be the year ebooks go mainstream? Or will it still be while before a gadget like the Kindle can kill your trusty paperback?
Out now | £free | Kobo Books
