I got a chance, briefly, to get my hands on Amazon’s Kindle.  A friend of mine picked one up for school and cheaper textbooks, and I have to say that the device is both incredibly light and incredibly easy to read.  I mean, seriously easy.  It’s just like reading a paper book, but not as heavy as your average text book.  Proving that Amazon had created a market, Sony has jumped into the fray offering both cheaper EBook readers (without wireless) and more expensive EBook readers (with the same capability as the Kindle).

However, the big deal is that EBooks don’t have a default format yet.  Sony’s new device will read PDFs (Amazon’s will not unless you have the documents converted via email), but Amazon has a specific format that some people claim are a negative mark for the device.

Really?

I seem to remember that Apple created a million-dollar music business without playing nice with other MP3 players.  Isn’t that the same thing?  Yes, NOW you can play your iTunes-purchased MP3s on other players, but it took years for Apple to loosen the proprietary purse strings.  If Amazon wants to take that model for the Kindle, they’d probably be pretty smart to do so.

I mean, it did work wonders for the iPod, but it would behoove Amazon to open up support for PDF files as soon as possible anyway.  The goal is to get the device in as many hands as possible, and this would only encourage adoption of the device.  Does the Kindle’s lack of PDF support keep you from buying one?