SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Google Inc. on Monday threw down its newest gauntlet in the tech industry, launching its long-awaited online bookstore as a shot against the offerings from Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc.
The new Google e-book store has more than 3 million titles, many of which are free, from almost 4,000 publishers, including Simon & Schuster Inc.(CBS 17.70, +0.17, +0.97%) and Random House. Additionally, Google(GOOG 579.13, +6.13, +1.07%) will let independent bookstores sell books through their own sites on the Google e-book store.
“Launching Google eBooks is an initial step toward giving you greater access to the vast variety of information and entertainment found in books,” said Abraham Murray, product manager of Google Books in a posting announcing the Google eBooks launch on the company’s official blog.
The main feature of the Google initiative is that it uses a cloud-hosting environment that allows customers to buy and store their books with Google, as opposed to downloading and storing books on traditional electronic reading devices. Google said this will allow books to be read using a Web browser on any computer or mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers running on Google’s Android operating system.
Google also launched an application so that its e-book offerings can be read on Apple’s (AAPL 320.83, +3.39, +1.07%) iPad and iPhone products. However, the Google books can’t be loaded or read on Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader.
The move by Google, and the ability to buy and read books on numerous devices, is seen by industry analysts as a direct challenge to offerings like Apple’s iBooks store, Amazon’s Kindle and the Nook reader, which is from Barnes & Noble(BKS 14.75, +1.47, +11.03%).
“This is basically a small stake in the ground,” said Allen Weiner, of technology research firm Gartner. “You have think about what this will look like in a year. It’s a warning shot as to what’s to come from Google in terms of the approach they are going to take towards a plethora of devices.”
Amazon has never released exact sales figures for its Kindle, while Apple has sold nearly 8 million iPads since the device was released in April, with at least 1.5 million e-books downloaded from its iBooks store.
Google’s shares rose $4.63 to $577.75 after the company’s e-book store went live. Apple’s was up $2.35 at $319.79 and Amazon slipped by 4 cents to $175.64.
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