Sony is taking steps to open up its ebook Reader and online ebook store.

索尼将要开放电子书阅读器和在线书店。

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Readers for digital books are steadily becoming more popular

The electronics giant said it would stop using a proprietary² standard（专用标准） in favour of the ePub open format³.

Sony said it would have its store converted to the format by the end of 2009. Most Sony Readers can already handle books in the ePub format.

This may not mean the end of all locks on books readable on Sony's device as the ePub format has an option to implement⁴ copyright controls.

"Consumers should not have to worry about which device works with which store," said Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading business division, in a statement.

He added that the shift "allows Sony to make its e-book store compatible with（与……不矛盾） multiple devices and its Reader devices open to multiple sources for content".

The common format would give Sony Reader owners much more choice about where they get their ebooks from.

Many publishers are setting up their own ebook stores to help them promote the works of new authors and remind readers about the back catalogues of established writers.

Sony's move is also seen as a response to the widely perceived success of Amazon's Kindle⁵ ebook reader - although so far the online store has declined to reveal how many devices it has sold.

Sony and Amazon also face competition from the many other ebook reading devices that are starting to be produced. Currently there are about 20 dedicated⁶（专用的） ebook readers on sale or in development.

PCs and laptops can also display ePub ebooks, as can high end phones such as Google Android devices and Apple's iPhone.

Partial figures gathered by the International Digital Publishing Forum⁷ suggest ebook sales are doing well. Wholesale⁸ ebook sales in the US jumped from $25.8m (£15.6m) to $37.6m (£22.7m) during the second quarter of 2009.

By contrast, sales at the end of the second quarter of 2008 stood at $11.6m (£7m).