Reference no: EM131017529

Part A: The following table shows book sales in the U.S. during 2004. With what you know about the impact of the Internet, what are some of the key differences you would expect to see if you had the equivalent table in the year 1994? If possible, support your answer with relevant readings.

Sales Range	Titles	Units
1,000,000	10	17,396,510
500K to 1,000,000	22	13,798,299
250K to 500K	64	22,252,491
100K to 250K	324	46,932,031
50K to 100K	767	51,858,835
5K to 50K	23,047	280,000,591
1,000 to 4,999	67,008	149,093,614
100 to 999	202,938	69,548,499
Sold 99 or less	948,005	14,346,417
Total	1.2 million	665 Million +

Part B: In the Fall of 2006, Sony introduced a digital reader, capable of synchronizing with your computer like an iPod, downloading books, and serving as a portable electronic book and other media player (shown to the right). It supports a Sony specific format for digital rights management (BBeB Book), as well as third party and open standard media formats such as unprotected Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, MP3 (for music), and JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP (for images). What are economic reasons that Sony might have for only offering its own proprietary standard for books covered by rights management while simultaneously offering the other standards for unprotected media? Do you agree with their approach?

Part C: What rows in the Table above would you expect to change the most if the Sony Reader becomes very popular? Justify your answer.

Part D: How might the pricing policies for Sony eBooks (not the Reader) change if the Sony Reader had thumbprint recognition versus a Reader without such user authentication?