Windows Phone Thoughts: Microsoft Reader Gets Updated

I thought Microsoft reader was a dead product. There hasn't been an update in years and its most well known partner, Amazon, dumped Reader and everyone else when it went with the Kindle. I couldn't even find anything on the help pages about Microsoft Reader, so i am guessing that Amazon's activation servers have been shuttered too.

Todd Ogasawara at MobileContentToday noticed that seemingly out of the blue, Microsoft has updated MS Reader to 2.4.2 for WinMo 6.0 and 6.1 devices. You can still buy the .LIT books at some online libraries according to Microsoft's site, but I am not sure how up to date those libraries are. Microsoft's Most Popular page doesn't have anything from 2009, and the 2008 titles for the most part aren't ringing too many bells with me as being chart toppers.

Todd is speculating that this might be a prelude to the Zune HD launch tomorrow. Could the Zune HD have MS Reader preinstalled? If so, will you be able to buy books from the Zune Marketplace? We'll have to wait and see. I got an email from the Zune support team that the site was going to go down today and be back tomorrow for an overhaul, so it is plausible that they are adding additional functionality to the store.