January 2001 > Adobe launched the Acrobat eBook Reader
In January 2001, Adobe launched the Acrobat eBook Reader (for free) and the Adobe Content Server (for a fee). The Acrobat eBook Reader was meant to read PDF files of copyrighted books, while adding notes and bookmarks, getting the book covers in a personal library, and browsing a dictionary. The Adobe Content Server was intended for publishers and distributors for the packaging, protection, distribution, and sale of copyrighted books in PDF format, while managing their access with DRM (Digital Rights Management), according to instructions given by the copyright holder, for example allowing or not the printing and loan of ebooks. In May 2003, the Acrobat eBook Reader (2nd version) merged with the Acrobat Reader (5th version) to become the Adobe Reader (beginning with the 6th version).
February 2001 > A quote by Russon Wooldridge, founder of NEF (Net of
French Studies)
Russon Wooldridge is a professor at the Department of French Studies in the University of Toronto, Canada, and the founder of the NEF (Net des Etudes Françaises / Net of French Studies) in May 2000. He wrote in February 2001: "My research, conducted once in an ivory tower, is now almost exclusively done through local or remote collaborations. (…) All my teaching makes the most of internet resources (web and email): the two common places for a course are the classroom and the website of the course, where I put all course materials. I have published all my research data of the last 20 years on the web (re-edition of books, articles, texts of old dictionaries as interactive databases, treaties from the 16th century, etc.). I publish proceedings of symposiums, I publish a journal, I collaborate with French colleagues by publishing online in Toronto what they can't publish online at home." (NEF Interview)
March 2001 > IBM launched the WebSphere Translation Server
In March 2001, IBM embarked on a growing translation market with a high-end professional product, the WebSphere Translation Server. The software could instantly translate webpages, emails, and chats in several languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish). It could process 500 words per second and add specific terminology to the software.
March 2001 > Palm launched the Palm Reader
In March 2001, Palm bought Peanutpress.com, a publisher and distributor of digital books for PDAs, from the netLibrary company. The Peanut Reader merged with (or became) the Palm Reader, that could be used on Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs, and the 2,000 titles from Peanutpress.com were transferred to the digital bookstore Palm Digital Media. In July 2002, the Palm Reader was also available for computers. Palm Digital Media distributed 5,500 ebooks in several languages in July 2002, and 10,000 ebooks in 2003.
April 2001 > PDAs and ebook readers: a few numbers
In April 2001, there were 17 million PDAs and only 100,000 ebook readers worldwide, according to a Seybold Report. 13,2 million PDAs were sold in 2001. Palm was the leader, despite fierce competition, with 23 million Palm Pilots sold between 1996 and 2002. In 2002, 36.8% of all PDAs were Palm Pilots. The Palm Pilot's main competitor was Microsoft's Pocket PC. The main platforms were Palm OS (for 55% PDAs) and Pocket PC (for 25,7% PDAs). In 2004, prices began to drop. The leaders were the PDAs of Palm, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard, followed by Handspring, Toshiba, and Casio. Smartphones became more and more popular then, and the sales of PDAs began to drop. Sony stopped selling PDAs in February 2005.