Tom Daz

1
Adobe eBook Evolution

• Tom Díaz
• Ebook Development Manager, Adobe
• (Formerly
• VP Product Development,
• Glassbook, Inc.)

Nelinet, Monday, May 21, 2001
2
Glassbook

• Massachusetts eBook start-up founded in March
  1998
• Tom Díaz and Len Kawell, Iris Associates
• Mary Ellen Heinen, Nelinet
• Defined a high-quality reading experience.
• Simple user interface.
• Powerful features.
• Worked on standards for digital rights management
  (DRM).
• Developed products for producers, distributors,
  and consumers.
• Acquired by Adobe Systems in September 2000.
• Adobe is second-largest PC software company.
• Installed base of Acrobat users approximately 200
  million.

3
Whyd We Do Software?

• No need to sell special hardware to start the
  eBook market.
• Millions of laptops sold a year.
• Securitys a problem, but
• Great screens.
• Plenty of disk space.
• Wealth of software for communication, formatting,
  text processing, etc.
• Consumers already using them to buy books on the
  Internet.
• All those computers in dorm rooms.

4
Why PDF?

• Already popular in the publishing industry.
• Archive format.
• Press file format.
• Good for print-on-demand.
• Multiplatform.
• Highly compressed.
• Fidelity to book design.
• Even novels have graphics in them.

5
Why Invest in Standards?

• eBook companies depend on growth of eBook sales
  and digitization of existing titles.
• Publishers will allow any vendor to monopolize
  content distribution.
• Therefore, multivendor standards are needed, or
  nobody makes any money.
• Plus of course, the products will be less
  confusing.

6
Pioneering Software Events
7
Some numbers

• English-language titles in libraries
• 10-20 million?
• In-print English-language titles
• about 3 million
• Existing eBook titles (all formats)
• eBook titles available for secure, portable
  readers

8
Laptops really do make excellent eBook readers
9
if you have the right software.

• Consumers get software for free.
• High-quality reading experience.
• Reasonable security.
• Products for producers, distributors, consumers.
• Especially interested in students and mobile
  professionals.

10
Development of the Reader

• Glassbook Reader v1.0 (1-3/2000). Price 0.00
• Reader Plus at 39, with American dictionary
• Reader v1.1 (late 3/2000)
• Sharper text
• Acrobat eBook Reader v2.0 (1/2001)
• Two-page display
• Text to speech
• Dictionary, highlighting, annotations in free
  Reader
• Acrobat eBook Reader v2.1 (4-5/2001)
• CoolType
• Macintosh

11
Adobe eBook Products

• Content Server. Creates and manages eBooks
  provides downloads.
• Acrobat eBook Reader. Provides eBook reading
  experience.
• At Internet bookstores and www.adobe.com
• Windows and Macintosh.
• CoolType for sharp text.
• Organize and sort books.
• Full fidelity to book design.
• Dictionary.
• Bookmarks, highlighting, annotations.
• With permission Copy citations, print, listen to
  text-to-speech rendering.

12
Future trends

• Adobe
• Digital textbooks and courseware.
• Adobe eBook readers for new platforms.
• Among those requested Palm OS, Windows CE.
• EBook products for libraries.
• Industry-wide
• Much more digital content available.
• Publisher prices dropping.

13
Thank you!

• For more information
• Adobe eBook products
• eBooks.adobe.com
• eBook standards efforts
• Open eBook Forum www.openebook.org