Hope that open standards will result in quicker acceptance of the new platform by the public
At what was billed as the "world's first electronic book conference," held October 8-9 at the National Institute for Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., Microsoft Corp. joined with major publishers and manufacturers in a call to create an open standard for delivery of books in electronic files to dedicated reading machines known as eBooks.
Bertelsmann, HarperCollins, Penguin Putnam, Simon &Schuster, Time Warner Books and Microsoft Press, along with e-retailer barnesandnoble.com and Japanese manufacturing giant Hitachi, agreed to help define the Open eBook specification for file and format structure, to be based on the popular HTML and XML languages used to format information for World Wide Websites. The Web format languages were chosen to allow compatibility among the many different types of eBook readers, including conventional PCs and the new class of reading devices, such as the NuvoMedia Rocket eBook and SoftBook Press's SoftBook.
Houghton Mifflin, Golden Books and Adobe Systems, though not included in the original press announcement, had joined the standards committee by the end of the conference.
Dick Brass, v-p, technology development for Microsoft, and a keynote speaker, said, "The specification is a living document, and the partners hope to fine-tune its features during the coming weeks." As it stands, the specification is compatible with eBook products on their way to market this fall. "SoftBook Press and NuvoMedia have made a tremendous contribution to this effort by providing insight from their early work," Brass said. The specification is available free of charge to all interested parties, Brass pointed out, and is not licensed or paid, as some proprietary computer "standards" have been in the past.
The first item on the agenda, Brass reported, was to pick a director for the group, and then to establish a website where those interested in eBook publishing could get information about the group and add their input to creating the specification.
De Jure vs. de Facto
Because the conference was held at NIST, formerly known as the Bureau of Standards, many attendees wondered whether any standards arising from the meeting would be voluntary or enforced by the government. But pioneer eBook publisher and inventor Michael Weiner observed, "This is not a de jure standard, like setting the length of a meter; by keeping the group open and including all the parties with commercial interest, it will become the de facto standard in the best way possible -- by being successful."
No minimum hardware configurations were discussed, at least in part because participants agreed that different parts of the market wanted different functions at different prices. "Expect to see big-format displays and simple hand-held readers," said Brass. "The idea is to get eBooks off the ground. The goal is to create as many titles as possible and win as many customers as possible, as fast as possible."
Thomas Middelhoff, CEO of Bertelsmann, declared, "By working together to create standards that will make life easier for publishers, manufacturers and customers, we will allow the market to fully realize the potential of eBooks."
