Microsoft and Barnes & Noble Strike eBook Deal
As Microsoft CEO Bill Gates alluded to at this years Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft has joined forces with bookstore giant Barnes & Noble to offer eBooks on their Web site. This announcement comes with the availibility of new software from Microsoft entitled Microsoft Reader especially written for eBook reading.
Riding on the coat tails of the Microsoft promise that the Redmond company will pave the way to Internet becoming more integral and vital to daily life in the next century, this deal will create a new eBook super center on the barnesandnoble.com site specifically selling books that can be read via the Internet through Microsoft Reader software.
Microsoft Reader for PC and handhelds is said to provide the closest reading experience to paper available on the computer today. The first software to capitalize on ClearType technology which improves screen resolution, MIcrosoft Reader makes it easier to read text in documents such as eBooks.
Along with ClearType technology, Microsoft Reader also features a dictionary and a library capable of holding numerous titles. The software provides other features such as highlighting, bookmarking, and the ability to annotate text.
Barnes & Noble is not the only large corporation to capitalize on Microsoft's latest venture. The largest publishers in Spain, France and Italy have already announced efforts to provide titles in the eBook standard format using Microsoft Reader. United States print company RR Donnelly has also announced plans to create tens of thousands of titles in the eBook standard, created in September, using Microsoft Reader software.
The new eBook store is set to open sometime mid-year and Microsoft Reader will premier on its new handheld device, the Pocket PC, which also debuted in Bill Gates keynote speech at this year's CES. It is expected to ship sometime in the middle of this year as well.
Read more about his keynote address and the Pocket PC from BetaNews.
