Friday, May 30, 2008

Ingram Digital announced agreement with Microsoft concerning Live Search Books

I received this in email. The hole left by Microsoft's exit is already being filled. Who will step in to help with the library content?



Ingram Digital Reaches Agreement with Microsoft
to Offer Publishers a Transition Option
from Live Search Books

to Ingram Search and Discover Platform

LOS ANGELES, CA – Ingram Digital, an Ingram Content company focused on solutions for digital content management, distribution and promotion, today announced that it is offering to transition all participating Microsoft Live Search Books publishers into its Ingram Search and Discover platform at no cost, enabling publishers to continue making their content searchable and available to readers.

For those publishers who choose, Ingram will archive their Live Search Book files following the closing of Live Search Books, giving them time and options to use those files for future discovery, print-on-demand and e-book distribution.

During the partnership of the last year, the Ingram and Microsoft Live Search teams have built a state of the art content ingestion and digitization center capable of processing hundreds of thousands of books each year into digital forms that can be utilized for a variety of search and discovery, print-on-demand and e-book formats.

Through this agreement, Ingram is offering Live Search Books publishers the opportunity to continue their digitization plans and make their content available in the Ingram Search and Discover platform.

Additionally, Ingram is offering publishers the opportunity to make the content available in Lightning Source print-on-demand programs and Ingram Digital e-book programs.

The Ingram Search and Discover platform enables booksellers to transform the online book browsing experience into a richer one, offering book buyers the ability to see a book before they purchase and to look inside the book as if they were browsing in their local bookstore. In addition, the Ingram Search and Discover platform allows potential customers to find books that meet their needs by making publisher content crawlable by Microsoft Live Search, Google and other leading search engines.

“Ingram understands the changing nature of business priorities and the decision by the Live Search Books management team to focus its resources on other opportunities,” said James Gray, President and CEO of Ingram Digital. “Microsoft has done an excellent job evangelizing to publishers about the benefits of digital discovery of book content, and Ingram is in strong agreement with the benefits to readers, publishers and booksellers. We look forward to working with publishers to help them manage this transition and continue to develop their digital strategy.”

About Ingram Digital

Ingram Digital is an Ingram Content company. Together with Ingram Book Group and Lightning Source Inc., the Ingram Content companies provide a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry. Ingram Digital provides publishers and other content owners with a comprehensive offering of digital content accession, storage, management and distribution services. Ingram Digital currently has several solution platforms - including MyiLibrary and VitalSource Technologies - which serve the institutional and educational markets respectively. In addition, Ingram Digital also serves the retailer market with full e-book and audio downloads as well as various search-and-discovery and marketing tools such as widgets. For more information, visit www.ingramdigital.com.


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