Apple got guilty on Wednesday of finalizing prices of the ebooks in its iTunes store by the United Nations district judge Denise Cote. The fight between Amazon & Apple continues as a group of publishers and Apple, including Simon and Schuster, elevated the prices of the ebooks above the deals available on Kindle platform, that is owned by the Amazon.
‘’The plaintiffs have publicized that the publisher defendants collaborated with each other to eliminate the retail price competition in order to up the ebooks prices, and the Apple played a vital role in facilitating and implementing that conspiracy,’’ said Denise Cote in the 159 page decision.
The Apple said that it would appeal the ruling and its fight against these false accusations. In the CNET article, the Apple was mentioned as saying that the iBookstore enlarged market choices for the customers and ‘’breaking the Amazon’s monopolistic hold on the publishing industry.’’
Surely, the judge and a few others (outside the halls of Cupertino) bought the testimony of the Apple Senior VP of internet services Eddy Cue about the 2010 memo from the late Steve Jobs and its line; ‘’Wow, we’ve lit the fuse on the power keg.’’ This was read as being about how the Apple’s entry into the ebook market would affect the Amazon. Eddy Cue said that it was a comment on how the Apple was able to make changes in the content industries.
Still, with the Apple’s appeal of the verdict and the penalty phase of the decision still unresolved, a simple look at market dynamic would lead the most onlookers to believe that a little will change for the customers both on & off the iOS platform.
According to the presentations at the recent Apple WWDC in the San Francisco, the Apple has 82% market share for the tablet computers. The whole worldwide ebook reader market was expected as 20 million for the 2012, most of that were sold in the United Nations. There is an increasing pressure on the single purpose reader hardware market from the tablets.
Apple appears to be nailing down textbook market. In June, the company announced a deal of $30 million for the Los Angleles county schools.
