Worth reading mike’s thoughts on Sony’s move:

The wild card here is if some big outside player — Walmart being the most frequently mentioned — saw benefits to having the ebook business or even the whole book business in its portfolio. That’s happened in the UK, where supermarket chain Sainsbury’s bought a majority stake in Anobii a UK-publishers-backed startup, analogous to Bookish in the US and Tesco bought Mobcast because the ebook business was one that they thought fit in well with their offerings and customer base. Both Sainsbury’s and Tesco made statements about strengthening their “digital entertainment” and online retailing propositions. Tesco is investing in devices as well. Kobo has made it a pillar of their strategy to find brick-and-mortar partners all over the world.

via Sony exits and the ebook business loses an original player – The Shatzkin Files.