Sony, who are struggling to make products that actually deliver profits, have again had a change of attitude over proprietary formats with the Company now announcing that they are dropping their eBook format for an industry standard approach from Adobe.The move comes after two failed attempts by Sony to get an eBook reader device off the ground.

Sony, who are struggling to make products that actually deliver profits, have again had a change of attitude over proprietary formats with the Company now announcing that they are dropping their eBook format for an industry standard approach from Adobe.The move comes after two failed attempts by Sony to get an eBook reader device off the ground. Now as Apple is set to enter the market in an effort to take share away from the highly popular Amazon Kindle reader, Sony has said that they will convert its eBook store to the industry-standard EPUB format by the end of the year, and do away with proprietary copy-protection software in favour of a more versatile content server from Adobe.

In the past Sony has made several attempts at trying to deliver proprietary technology from the early days of Beta VS VHS to video discs to even trying to promote their own proprietary memory for video cameras and other Sony devices.

The new move “allows Sony to make its eBook store compatible with multiple devices and its Reader devices open to multiple sources for content.”

The EPUB format has been adopted by over 60 companies, and is used by publishers including Random House and HarperCollins to distribute e-books.

“A world of proprietary formats and DRMs creates silos and limits overall market growth,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading business division.

“Consumers should not have to worry about which device works with which store. With a common format and common content protection solution (DRM), they will be able to shop around for the content they want regardless of where they get it or what device they use.”