Rhyming Couplets?

We all know that irrespective of the K2 show, the mobile smartphone is the hottest platform today. It is effectively moving the agenda from the standalone readers onto the new platform and 2009 is teed up to be a significant year as ereaders vie with the smartphones and notebooks and downloads vie with rentals and retailers vie with libraries.

The digital dearth is about to change and whether we like it or not, Google is about to unleash ebooks, library subscriptions, free to view and sales onto the market. DRM is still here but is not protecting the content as much as it is locking content into channels and aggregators’ models.

So what is hot gossip and what do we think may make the news now K2 has had its 15 minutes of fame and Plastic Logic has again said its coming sometime?

We believe that Adobe may well announce that it’s going to port its new ACS4 DRM service to the mobile platform. This was always going to happen but it makes more sense to do it sooner than later. When would it be logical to announce it – CES in Barcelona next week, when everyone is talking mobile.

What platform will they choose? It unlikely to be Android as it would be pitching directly against Google. It’s unlikely to be Microsoft which would rule some of the others out. It would be good to select a partner that can promote it and facilitate it and that leads us to a narrowing field of players.

Some would suggest that Lexcycle's Stanza, who already has the leading iPhone application, may make a perfect rhyming couplet in harmony with Adobe's DRM.