To our patrons of the Mobipocket format —
We regret to inform you that Mobipocket pulled all Agency Five titles from all their distribution clients including us. Going forward, the Mobipocket format of all titles from Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster will no longer be available. We contacted Mobipocket and found out that they currently have no plans to resume A5 distribution in the near or distant future.
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How strange! Now, why would Amazon (owners of Mobipocket) want to restrict access to this popular format in Amazon’s competitors’ bookstores?
Abandoning sarcastic enquiry for a moment, in fact Amazon bought and derailed Mobipocket. No software updates have occurred for well over a year, long-promised new versions haven’t appeared, and the “support forum” is dead as a dodo apart from unhappy Mobipocket users. Ebook forums have noted that Mobipocket titles are disappearing from major retailers. Amazon have essentially killed the Mobipocket format, while re-packaging it for their own Kindle.
Amazon also bought Stanza, up to that point the key player in the ebook app. market. Development has pretty much stopped there, as well. Unfair trade practices, anyone?
(Note for readers: Stanza was free, easy to use, the developers were supportive, the app. converted and read many ebook formats and ran on just about everything. For a good, independent ebook converter, cataloguer and reader that runs on any desktop, try Calibre. Also see the Mobileread page on ebook software.)