Another heavy hitter joins the e book party; today Sharpe The Japan's largest maker of liquid-crystal displays announced its intention to launch an e book site in December. 

The company will sell two tablet reader devices called Galapagos. Users of the devices, which are equipped with a 5.5-inch screen and a 10.8-inch LCD screen on which magazines can be read with a two page spread, can access 30,000 titles, including newspapers, magazines and books. The devices will have a trackball for one-handed use.  Sharp's e book service represents a shift for the company from the usual hardware one off sale to devices that will continue to evolve through software updates Sharp aims to win one million customers for the e-book services by the end of 2011. The devices will compete with Apples' iPad and Amazon .

Sharpe has stated that the global e-book market may expand to 56 million units in the year ending March 2013 from 7.5 million in the 12 months to March 2011.

The e book market is getting really crowded now and full of heavy hitters many coming out of Japan. Sony announced a partnership with KDDI, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper company and the Toppan printing company. NTT DoCoMo has teamed up with Dai Nippon Printing.

Jane Tappuni Publishing Technology