Amazon.com may have the Kindle. But the giant online retailer doesn’t think that’s the only portable device where people will read books. Looking to bolster its position in e-books, Amazon.com today purchased the maker of the free iPhone application Stanza. The company behind Stanza — Lexcycle — announced the news in a blog post today.
“It has been an amazing experience to see Stanza grow out of our brainstormed ideas into one of the most downloaded iPhone applications,” the company wrote. “Throughout this period we have attempted to listen to and innovate for our customers to provide a great ebook reading experience.”
Amazon representatives could not be immediately reached for comment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed in the blog post.
FSM EXCLUSIVE DEAL With offices in Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon, Stanza allows readers to choose from among 100,000 books and periodicals. Users of Stanza also can save copies of their books to the Kindle.
As of mid-February, Lexcycle said that it had more than 1.3 million users in 60 countries using Stanza. The e-book reader was first launched last July.
Amazon.com introduced its own free iPhone electronic book application in early March.
[via TechFlash]