Microsoft Announces the End of its Reader Application

[JMcEntegart]

Stock up on books now, Microsoft Reader users.

Microsoft Announces the End of its Reader Application : Read more

 

[bustapr]

i used it for a time. But then moved on to borders and B&N apps because they sold cheaper ebooks. So I dont really care if they go down. I nearly forgot this even existed. So much competition now that every book store has their own app.

 

[Titanius]

I've never heard of Microsoft Reader until now, maybe the downfall of this was insufficient advertising?

 

[Marco925]

Ok. when the second post is advertising. we have a problem here. Toms, please fix this

 

[mchuf]

Another reason to oppose "The Cloud" for mainstream use.

 

[NuclearShadow]

I was unaware such a service even existed from Microsoft. With the app itself seemingly being free I wonder why they never included it within Windows in the first place? At-least this would have meant more exposure.

 

[jaksun5]

I downloaded this for my WinMo 6.1 phone. It looked decent but the books were more expensive than the friggin hardcopies. I love how companies try to break a market by selling you less for more, and they wonder why the things being wound up a few years later after an unsuccessful run.

They could make it relevant in no time by just 'adding value', something that software companies are loathe to do.

 

[mcd023]

they had an e-book reader?

 

[jsc]

I have been using Reader for years, just never bought any content. Whoops. I take that back. I mostly download my books from the Baen sci-fi website in .LIT format.

I like how it keeps track of my LIT library and the automatic bookmarks when I stop reading. And the .LIT compression algorithms are better than .MOBI's.

 

[kikireeki]

Shamefully, I have never heard of it!

 

[custodian-1]

[citation][nom]kikireeki[/nom]Shamefully, I have never heard of it![/citation]

Me Too but I love my Kindle

 

[ta152h]

Yet another failure by Microsoft. They fail virtually every time they go into a market they don't have a monopoly in, or can't leverage their existing monopoly. It's always enjoyable to see.

Windows is safe for a while, at least, but Office is already slowly losing share to OpenOffice (can't beat that price).

 

[kittle]

goodbye & good riddance.
I tried it several times and this last time I re-downloaded it only to be re-reminded why I uninstalled it years ago.

 

[jhansonxi]

I completely forgot it existed. Haven't seen it since Win98.

 

[Guest]

1st time I heard of it and since it is ending it, I won't download it.

 

[TheCapulet]

[citation][nom]jhansonxi[/nom]I completely forgot it existed. Haven't seen it since Win98.[/citation]
I don't think it'd been updated since then either. MS E-Reader is/was the most cumbersome e-reader I've ever used.

The only reason it was ever used was for textbooks and a few free e-books. Now that they're tossing their hat in, hopefully people will stop formatting their stuff for this terrible reader.

 

[11796pcs]

Why does Microsoft even try? If you're going to let your product die in disgrace without most tech-savvy people even knowing about it, why even waste the money to create the product in the first place? The problem with Microsoft is that they don't know what consumers want and they are too afraid to take a risk and actually try to full-heartedly market a product. The reason Apple is so successful right now is because they can do those two things. Everyone at Tom's knows that there is almost nothing special about Apple products. After playing with an iPod Touch for about an hour I was sort of bored. And the apps are a bunch of stupid games. But it's not about what's on the inside that matters, in the real world it's unfortunately the outside that people find more important and that's what Apple capitalizes on. So sorry Microsoft but you deserve to have your e-reader program fail.

 

[bit_user]

Is .lit a proprietary MS format? If so, did they say how people are supposed to read .lit files, from now on?

Does anyone else find that prospect a bit scary? I have never bought ebooks, and I'm sure not about to start now.

 

[soundefx]

I didn't even know that this existed.

 

[eddieroolz]

I was completely unaware that this service even existed, actually.