Sony Opens Up E-Book Reader to Other Booksellers

By Peter Svensson With the move, Sony is partly letting go of its e-book business model, under which it sold the $300 device and the books that could be read on it. It's also a challenge to Amazon, which last year put out its own e-book reader and tied it to its online store. But Amazon makes it relatively easy to submit books to sell through the store. With the market for electronic books still relatively sleepy, Sony Corp. is trying a new tack: untethering the latest model of its e-book reading device from its own online bookstore. On Thursday, Sony will provide a software update to the Reader, a thin slab with a 6-inch screen, so the device can display books encoded in a format being adopted by several large publishers. That means Reader owners will be able to buy electronic books from stores other than Sony's. "This... [read full story]