Google to enter e-book market

Google has gone one step closer to it's monetizing plans for all those millions of books the company has so far digitized. "Google Editions" will be non-platform specific and will enable customers to download to a variety of devices.

It must be said that Google does have a vast library of literature at it's disposal, over 12 million books at last count (both in print and out of print) which is much greater than Amazon or indeed Apple. There is however a dark legal cloud still hanging above Google's head after a consortium of publishers, authors and book-sellers have tried to block Google's right to distribute these works by forming the Open Book Alliance. The New York court has decided that this deal needs to be looked into in more detail but has yet to reach a decision.

Google has however confirmed that this legal battle, and any resulting legal ruling will not infringe the launch of Google Editions.

Google Editions is seen by some as an aid to boosting the e-book and e-reader market, itself a growing industry with the recent launch of the first Tablet computers but many predict it will also take a very large slice from Amazon and many independent book sellers.