• Business Week, Tuesday, May 5, 2009 11:15 AM

Amazon reportedly will launch a larger version of its Kindle e-book reader May 6 in partnership with six universities, including Case Western, Pace and Princeton. The market is certainly there: college book sales were valued at $5.4 billion in the 2007-08 fiscal year, according the National Association of College Stores.

But Amazon faces several challenges, Douglas MacMillan reports. First, it will need to set prices carefully. "Asking Mom and Dad to shell out a few hundred extra dollars is a hurdle," points out Mike McGuire, a media analyst at Gartner, despite potential savings of e-books over paper. Reports are that at least some of the university partners will subsidize some of the outlay for the reader.

The device also will need to be large enough to include such elements as graphs, charts, and tables, but not so big that it won't fit in school bags or on classroom desks. Amazon is also reported to be partnering with newspaper publishers, and some analysts speculate that the screen may offer innovative features such as rolling up or folding in half like a newspaper.

Read the whole story at Business Week »