Google expects to launch its digital book platform “Google Edition”s in the United States before the end of this year, and Europe in early 2011, after reaching a series of agreements with publishers on the continent.

It did so on Thursday, 7 Editions Google representative in Spain, Luis Collado, a news agency EFE during the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.

Collado talks about the launch of Google extension Editions, not the project itself, which is already running. Currently, the Google platform Books already has 15 million digital books, 2 million of them protected by copyright still in force of partner publishers from Google.

These books can only be accessed online and are not available for download or purchase.

The next step for Google is just opening the possibility of buying these digital books copyrighted by Google Editions.

Although currently the digital books are neither 1% of the European market, Collado believes that the involvement of digital editions will increase if all stakeholders participate.

What is missing, according to Collado, is to simplify the buying process and digital technology offer unique solutions, not create incompatible formats between different devices used to view these digital books, as Amazon’s Kindle. “We must ensure that technology is no longer an obstacle,” said Collado.

Via: PW.