Time Inc issued a press release indicating their commitment to tablets, the publishing anc consuming platform of the future, with plans to publish all of its magazines in digital formats.
Time, People, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune are among some of its more notable titles that I read. Well, not People but you can't help avoid back-copies of them when you visit a doc's office.
Time has already made available some magazines in the iTunes Apple store via dedicated apps. The same is for the Android Marketplace. What's notable is that HP's Touchpad will also be a part of the mix.
What is also notable is the absence of some devices like Kindle and RIM's Playbook. I reckon they should be able to access Time Inc's library of magazines once RIM release's the Android player app for the Playbook and Amazon's Kindle tablet goes on sale later this fall. Still, no native support for the Playbook would be a huge blow to RIM.
Also, Time Inc boasted 28 million subscribers to its 21 magazines and "hundreds of thousands" of them happen to also be digital subscribers. And more than 600K copies have been bought online based on four titles.
Not bad but not great either.
So you have to ask why now? My guess is that they saw two things. First, its subscribers have been asking for it. Second, if not Time Inc, then who will lead the charge onto the tablets?
Perhaps, they also see the rotting carcass that is Borders Group and realized that unless they embrace the future now, they will become like that.
Source: Business Wire via TIPB.
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