The RCS Group and Telecom Italia today signed an agreement for the distribution of and access to RCS editorial content.
As a result of this agreement, from today 650 RCS Group e-books are available at the Biblet Store (http://www.biblet.it/), the dedicated Telecom Italia platform, and accessible via the new TIM Biblet e-reader. Digital editions of leading daily newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta dello Sport are also available on Android operating system-based tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is on sale through TIM stores and, in the near future, on Olivetti’s new OliPad tablet.
Franco Bernabè, Telecom Italia CEO, said: “The significant agreement signed today with the RCS Group is a major landmark that shows how technology can be an efficient driver for facilitating access to knowledge and culture through new tools. It is a significant acknowledgement of our ability to innovate, which allows us to position the company as a driver of high-tech-led markets”.
Antonello Perricone, CEO of RCS MediaGroup, said: “I am particularly pleased about this partnership, which I have no hesitation in defining as a natural partnership, given our leadership in our respective industries. This is the latest step we have taken along the path to crossmediality. We are investing resources and energy in this to offer new opportunities for the dissemination of culture by combining prestige and modernity. For the publishing industry, the future lies in major synergistic projects like this”.
The Biblet Store now offers e-books from RCS Libri imprints Rizzoli, Bompiani, Fabbri, Adelphi, Archinto, Marsilio, Skira and Sonzogno, including Umberto Eco’s “Il cimitero di Praga”, Beppe Severgnini’s “La pancia degli italiani”, and Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Over the next few weeks, more e-books will gradually become available from the 2,000 new titles published each year, along with a backlist of around 16,000 books. On average, prices will be 30% lower than hardback or softback paper books.
By integrating the Biblet Store with the new TIM e-reader, RCS Libri and Telecom Italia are keen to offer their customers leading-edge services with direct, personalized access to the biblet.it catalogue.
E-books can already be purchased from the Biblet Store using a PC and a credit card, and via the new TIM e-reader, which offers simple, direct access to the e-book store over 3G connectivity. Equipped with a 6-inch display, the device is available at €259. It comes with an innovative Biblet Kit that includes a SIM card with €5 of free traffic. The Biblet Kit may also be purchased via a €19 per month subscription, which includes a €10 cumulable top-up, and can be used to buy e-books. This solution offers 250MB of internet traffic per month. Both of these options provide free mobile browsing of the Biblet Store, and an option to buy e-books using credit on the SIM card or via credit card. This new product is available at biblet.it and from larger Telecom Italia sales outlets.
In the near future, e-books may be purchased and read on Olivetti’s OliPad, a new tablet that is being launched over the next few months, as well as on many other devices via Biblet App, a free application for downloading e-books that will soon be available from the Apple Store and on the Android Market.
This agreement between two major Italian enterprises will allow more and more readers to try out new products and services, and enjoy dynamic, high-tech access to the Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta dello Sport daily papers. Next year, users of the new Olivetti OliPad will benefit from pre-installed applications for reading digital editions of RCS’s two daily papers, which are already available on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Right from their devices, they will be able to browse these newspapers, read supplements and local editions, and access all linked multimedia content. The user-experience of reading digital editions of the Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta dello Sport on Android is particularly advanced, thanks to RCS’s market-leading development of proprietary applications.
Milan, 9 December 2010
