Microsoft has signed a patent agreement with Amazon.com that allows the two companies to share technology in several areas including Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader and Amazon's use of Linux-based servers.
The companies did not disclose details, but Microsoft said Amazon would pay it an undisclosed amount under the patent license agreement.
Last week, Credit Suisse Group AG analysts said Amazon will likely see its market share of e-book sales slip to 72 per cent this year from 90 per cent in 2009 as competition intensifies from Apple's iPad and Google. At the same time, Amazon.com may boost digital book sales by 83 per cent this year to $248 million from $135 million last year, the analysts said.
By 2015, those sales should reach $775 million for a market share of 35 per cent, they said.
"We envision a scenario where Apple, Amazon and Google eventually split the market," Spencer Wang, Kenneth Sena and John Blackledge said.
Industrywide, digital sales are expected to grow to 20 per cent of the book market by 2015, compared with about 1 per cent last year. The analysts said they expect e-books to represent about 3 per cent of total book sales in 2010.
Agencies