As Sony and Google team up, the e-book may be here to stay

Amazon (AMZN) started the mainstream movement toward the use of e-books with its Kindle product. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the huge online commerce operation should be honored that Google (GOOG) and Sony (SNE) are getting into the same business.

According toThe Wall Street Journal, "in a strike against Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader, Sony and Google plan to launch a partnership that will give users of the Sony Reader device access to more than half a million public domain books from Google's ambitious book digitization project."