Barnes & Noble, Plastic Logic, and now AT&T have been vacuming up headlines this week thanks to their multifaceted leap into e-books and e-reading. Regardless of whether Plastic Logic or Barnes & Noble manage to make waves in a space dominated by Amazon's Kindle devices, there's plenty more to talk about now that AT&T, another major telco, is on board, too.
Here's what we know so far: Barnes & Noble's newly launched eBookstore will be the exclusive online bookstore for Plastic Logic's forthcoming e-reader and would-be Kindle Killer, which will be available in 2010. Plastic Logic also now has AT&T in its corner; AT&T on Wednesday confirmed it would supply the 3G network needed to power the Plastic Logic e-reader's wireless connection and enable Plastic Logic device users to browse and download content.
It's an interesting move for AT&T, if only because it continues to expand AT&T's visibility on mobile devices other than phones and suggests much about how telecommunications companies are going to compete in the e-reading market alongside device makers and digital book suppliers.
Glenn Lurie, AT&T's president of emerging devices, said in a statement that AT&T's backing of Plastic Logic and its e-reader represented "tremendous market potential for electronic reading devices." Is it ever: Sprint Nextel already provides the Amazon Kindle's wireless connection through Sprint's Whispernet technology, and the other big gun in the telco space, Verizon, has been hinting since at least April that a number of e-book and e-reading device manufacturers have contacted it about supplying a network for their endeavors.
Whether it all works in Plastic Logic's favor to be a Kindle toppler or not won't be determined for some time. For now, it stands to reason Plastic Logic could show a little more bravado as it treks into a market where competition for Amazon's mighty Kindles is already pretty thin. You've got the looks, brains and brawn Plastic Logic -- and you're not going to try to challenge Amazon?
