Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

The website InfoWorld has a feature entitled “12 crackpot tech ideas that could transform the enterprise,” cataloging “technologies that push the envelope of the plausible [and] capture our curiosity almost as quickly as the would-be crackpots who dare to concoct them become targets of our derision.” eBooks are among the dozen crazy schemes that have a shot at changing the world, standing alongside things like quantum computing and quantum cryptography (er, while eBook formats may be confusing, I think they’re considerably less confusing than quantum computing and quantum cryptography). The overall tone of the eBook entry in the article is positive, with the subtext being “eBooks are an idea whose time may have finally come,” but the fact that they’re still categorized as a “crackpot” idea only highlights the fact that — more than six years after their debut — eBooks are not yet ready for prime time.

From InfoWorld: “Remember the paperless office? If so, you may recall a close cousin: the e-book, which promised access to entire libraries of documents in easily readable formats; an obvious boon to the enterprise knowledge worker on the go. As did many ideas debuting midway through the dot-com boom, it failed spectacularly.”

12 crackpot tech ideas that could transform the enterprise