“Apple Inc. executives were prepared to abandon plans to enter the e-book business on the eve of the company’s 2010 debut of the iPad, Penguin Group USA Inc. Chief Executive Officer David Shanks testified in the U.S. government’s civil antitrust trial against Apple,” Bob Van Voris reports for Bloomberg News.
“Shanks, called on the second day of the trial in Manhattan federal court, yesterday described his company’s decision to sign a deal known as an agency agreement for Apple to sell Penguin’s electronic books. He said Penguin signed on after initially resisting Apple’s pricing model,” Van Voris reports. “‘It was fairly clear that they could take or leave being in the book business,’ Shanks said. ‘If they couldn’t get it on their terms, they weren’t going to take the jump into being in books.'”
Van Voris reports, “Shanks, under questioning by Apple’s lawyer, Orin Snyder, testified that the talks with Apple were a “typical negotiation” and that Penguin originally proposed that Apple sign an e-book contract similar to its existing deal with Amazon. The Penguin CEO said his company considered maintaining different pricing models, with Apple on the agency model and Amazon continuing to buy books at a fixed wholesale price. He said he pressed Seattle-based Amazon to switch to agency after signing an agency agreement with Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS)”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]