eSentral or e-Sentral is a Malaysian e-Book store for South East Asian market. It was first introduced in October 2011 [1] by two entrepreneurs, Faiz Al-Shahab, and Syed Irfan, as a private funded initiative, and received Series A funding from a Malaysian venture capital firm late 2012. eSentral is operated by a private limited company, Xentral Methods. [2] eSentral, a derivation of the word "sentral", meaning central or focal point in Malay, indicates a digital marketplace for contents delivered via bandwidth.
Once registered with the website, users can access books using EPUB standards (rather than PDF) on their computer, tablet or smartphone. [2]
eSentral was the first eBook portal in South East Asia to operate with Digital Rights Management via its own proprietary encryption system. [3]
eSentral has grown to be the biggest repository of eBooks in South East Asia. [4]
eSentral also became the first company to introduce bluetooth beacon technology in distributing eBooks for micro-location premises. This was first demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur International Airport in September 2015. [5]
