PowerByHand, one of the largest providers of mobile content and applications, has renamed and re-launched Palm Digital Media, an electronic book store it acquired from PalmSource back in the Fall, as eReader.com.

With the new name, PowerByHand said it wanted to better reflect its offerings. This makes sense, as Palm Digital Media, now eReader, delivers more than eBooks that are just compatible with the Palm platform. Its eBooks can also be read on the Pocket PC, Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Mike Violano, the VP in charge of eBooks and eReader at PowerByHand, said “our new name (also) positions us to better reach and satisfy millions of Pocket PC users who can take eBooks with them anywhere, anytime.”

These eBook offerings include more than 13,000 titles with hundreds of new releases each month. In addition to the new website, PowerByHand has renamed its eBook reading software, Palm Reader, to eReader, so as to better reflect its cross platform capabilities.

Back in the fall, the Open eBook Forum, a trade and standards organization for the electronic publishing industries, revealed detailed statistics on the state of eBooks in its first eBook and eDocument Publishing and Retail Statistics report. Compiled from data submitted by 34 publishers and retailers, the Open eBook Forum claimed the analysis marked the first-ever quantitative assessment of the electronic publishing industry.

The report stated that eBook sales revenues at the time were up by 30% and unit sales were up by 40% over the same period the year before.. Even so, the eBook industry has struggled to gain a foothold, as the user experience for reading on eBook devices, which range from PCs to PDAs to eBook specific hardware, and delivery of content haven't reached the point where it is a tempting or completely satisfying alternative to reading standard books for most people. Around the same time the Open eBook Forum report came out, the eBook industry suffered a major blow when Barnes & Noble pulled out of the eBook market.