As the holiday season begins, the war of the micro worlds heats up. Palm has just released two new high-tech Pilots. Dell is fast on Palm's heels with the arrival of its low-cost PDA. And Microsoft and its hardware allies are hotly promoting not only the new tablet computer but also the Pocket PC.
No matter who wins this competition, content owners stand to gain. Publishers of all stripes are discovering that these ever-improving personal data assistants are a consumer-friendly platform for a growing range of content.
Speaking at a recent meeting of the American Medical Publishers Association, John Voris, CEO and president of ePocrates, a handheld drug information provider, noted that nearly half of the nation's 600,000 practicing doctors use a PDA (most use a Palm Pilot) at the "point of care." Physicians, surgeons and anesthesiologists synch their PDAs with their computers and have come to rely on them for the latest information about drugs and diseases. "They are simple, quick, reliable. They fit into their pocket and into their workflow. Doctors just love them," said Voris.
Cathy Wesler, managing editor of Birmingham, Ala.—based medical publisher Oakstone, observed that her company first used audiotapes to provide "time-starved" doctors with journal article summaries in their cars and offices. The PDA is Oakstone's most recent platform, delivering a pure-text version of products like JournalBytes via the AvantGo system.
Even huge documents work on the PDA. Since 1955, McGraw-Hill has published the venerable 2,700-page Harrison's Medical Encyclopedia. In 1999, building on a CD-ROM version, the company created Harrison's Online, said Michael Hayes, v-p and group publisher, McGraw-Hill STM. After a slow start, the online version, rich with links and daily updates, eventually found success via a subscription-based business model targeting universities, libraries and medical schools. This year, M-H released the new PDA version, Harrison's on Hand, once again marketing to individual users who can personalize exactly the package of content. Market pull has been so strong, noted Bob Bolick, v-p of business development, McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, that the company is embarking on a "top secret" wireless pilot at two hospitals.
Equally unexpected is the success of the PDA platform in trade publishing. Pointing to statistics showing strong sales from Palm, Chris North, v-p, general manager, electronic publishing at HarperCollins, declared, "PDAs are totally where the market is." With the new high-contrast, side-lit screens, "you can have a comfortable, immersive reading experience," North noted. "The only problem, like on the flight home from Frankfurt, is that you may run out of battery."
Simon & Schuster, Random House, AOL Time Warner and Hyperion are among the publishers making a growing number of front- and backlist titles available as e-books in four formats: Palm, Gemstar, Adobe and Microsoft Reader (which works on the Pocket PC as well). North notes that literary fiction, romance, SF and business titles are all enjoying handheld success. "There's an interesting debate," North added, "as to whether the consumer will ultimately prefer a dedicated device, which is likely to have a larger screen, or a general-purpose device like a Palm, which you carry with you."
Whatever hardware ultimately prevails, the future of the once-declared-dead e-book seems a bit brighter. North said HC is "seeing fantastic growth," especially in e-book sales to handheld devices.
