Gemstar Officially Ends Operations
by Calvin Reid and Steven Zeitchik, PW NewsLine -- Publishers Weekly, 6/18/2003
We know you've read that headline before, but this time it's for real -- even Gemstar acknowledges "it's winding them down." It will continue to sell content through July 16 and will support customers' accounts for three years from then but won't do much more than that.The loss of a format will lead to a loss in revenue; Darren Sennett of Powells.com called the closing "no fun for us," and noted that "Gemstar sales are a big piece of our e-book sales." Publishers were dismayed by the move too, but displayed a gritty optimism that these days are a job requirement for working with ebooks.
"Gemstar customers are very dedicated ebook readers. Hopefully they'll migrate to other formats," says S&S's Keith Titan, who says the publisher has been seeing growth in all three other formats." Titan added that it wasn't the idea of a dedicated device but Gemstar's execution, which involved a closed-distribution system, that was the issue. "We still think that with things like the right timing and the right price, a dedicated device can work."
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