A Visit to enTourage Systems

Originally Posted by physics

Anyway, I just wanted to add my 2 cents in hopes that it would be helpful. Sorry this is long.

A very illuminating post.

Originally Posted by Adiposius Maximus

. . .With regard to Boris' suggestion of releasing the source code...do we even think they have an SDK to release at this point? Those things take time and money to produce...

If they could make the Reader and the Journal and a couple other odds and ends to use the eInk, then they had SOMETHING for their developers to use. It might not have been something nicely wrapped in a bow with pretty documentation at that time, but if they had opened it up and encouraged community participation a lot of the rough edges would have been smoothed out for them for free.

Originally Posted by borisb

Actually, NiaTrue made that poignant statement:

My apologies to both of you.

Jennifer thanks to you and especially your husband for taking the time to visit Entourage and post the results. There seems to be a lot of genuine interest in doing something to help the company out. If time is available to some of us, such as me, we could become demonstrators on campus. This summer is a very active time with the schools registering incoming freshmen and transfers. Parents are dropping money on books, and systems to insure the success of their children. Why not on an Edge? I would demo the Edge in the Bookstore and since I am a student, I have the accounts and am familiar with the systems. They could see the Edge in a live presentation and then wander over to the net-books and iPads to see if they offer the same functionally. Only then will they understand the advantages the Edge offers. I think if Entourage searches their owners, asks for help at the local campuses they could but quite a force of representatives out in the public.

My idea.

Micheal

Originally Posted by physics

1) First, the research point. I need to use Maple/Mathematica for my research, which means I'd be lugging my computer around with me anyway (and no, no one should even try get Maple/Mathematica running on the Edge!). I think a lot of us in the sciences/engineering are in that boat- because of what we need for research, we won't be able to just carry around the Edge instead of a laptop. So there's not much of an advantage to the second screen...and it adds weight and decreases the battery life. So a dual book isn't for us- why do I bother listing this? I think this is important, because I at least get the impression that we science/engineering people are more likely to be into gadgets and stumble across the Edge.

Assuming you have dial-in access to a computer workstation cluster, which I assume would be the case for most graduate programs in physics, some of this can be worked around by using an Android SSH client like ConnectBot to dial in and access the command-line version of Maple or Matlab. (As a math grad student myself, I've had to do this a few times in a pinch.) Obviously you lose the graphical interface and plotting capabilities, which may be what you need, but the core functionality remains.

I've always wondered about the determined marketing to students. The majority of people seem to be in the post-grad to professors in academia and professionals like lawyers, doctors, engineers in other sectors. The undergrad student is just not who is buying and using the Edge. They need to market it to people who need to read and mark up pdf/epub documents. It's not a very good document creation device, so writing papers is not a strong point. Reading, correcting, annotating and editing papers is much better. Hence the professionals who like the Edge. Plus, they often have more disposable income to spend than undergrad students. The other small group who might really use the Edge are people who read a lot of books from free sites, like Google Books, Internet Archives and Project Gutenberg. This is my group, and I don't know how big it is. I do know that I never seriously looked at anything other than the Kindle DX and Edge because I really, really wanted the eInk and largest screen size I could get. And, the Kindles don't do well with pdfs and don't do epub at all.

Alefor, I am disturbed by the lack of response to your offer of helping to market to medical professionals. That is a WONDERFUL place to market the Edge. Not HSN. Not undergrads. Professionals, including teachers. And, like Physics said, even some/many post-grads will still need a different device.

Originally Posted by dcubed2

Not HSN

Actually, my gut tells me they sold more (or nearly so) PE's via HSN (over 14,000) than all other PE and EE sales combined. Of course, the HSN sales figure is the only one they've publically disclosed, so we don't know for sure. HSN effectively was a surprisingly far reaching advertising medium, and you just need a small percentage of viewers to respond to get the huge sales. And the eDGe segment was something like an hour long and repeated multiple times. The only seriously similar medium would be prime TV on the US national networks, but that would cost a huge amount and you get only a 1-2 minute commerical at a time (but at least you could grab people's interest). I think they got lucky with HSN.

Originally Posted by dcubed2

people who read a lot of books from free sites, like Google Books, Internet Archives and Project Gutenberg

I think these people will never be the Edge real hardcore users: they could find more interesting a Boox M90 & M91, a Pocketbook PB902 & 903, Asus dr900, and some other upcoming 9,7 e-ink devices. These are way lighter & portable, 5-8x battery duration, 20-30% less pricey than the Edge.

Long sessions of editing texts is what the Edge is mainly about, with the smart integration of the second screen

Every academic I've shown the PE to has expressed interest, asked why they've never heard of it, and then asked for a demonstration. One of my friends (also an academic) bought one, and another friend who's a lawyer drooled over it but stuck with the Nook he already owned for financial reasons. I can see why selling to the HSN demographic would be appealing: there are a lot of them! But they are the ones most likely to be frustrated and dissatisfied with them. Alefor's story is disturbing, because you would think that those are exactly the types of opportunities that Entourage would want.

Ermine has really unleashed a lot of the edge's potential--in my opinion anyway, and I think so despite my ongoing hibernation and wifi connectivity issues with the EE--so perhaps there might be a second wind for Entourage. Although given the nature of technology, fads, and VC, it's unlikely. Perhaps we should all start our own company and make dual e-ink screen devices! Now that would be hot.

Alas, it's the plotting that I typically need. But thanks for the thought Adiposius Maximus!

First, I appreciate the in-person confirmation that Entourage is alive and . . . afloat. It's especially heartening since I expect my shiny new eDGe to arrive on Thu or Fri.

I bet the ranch that my experience showing this thing around campus will be like alex_edge's. The first time I sit down in a committee meeting, fire up the Edge, and start annotating a PDF of the agenda and the procedures we're revising, at least three of the six or seven colleagues in the room are going to try to tackle me and abscond with it. When I show one pal that she can hand write comments on student electronic work without printing it before and scanning it after, she'll go crazy with delight. When I sent my funding request to my young gadget-loving department head and he took a look at the product description, his reaction was, "Holy monkey brains, all this thing needs is a toothbrush."

The execution and marketing may need some work, but regardless of how my Edge ends up performing, this is an inspired idea -- so I hope Entourage can turn things around. But yeah, you need to work on the features that the users in the trenches are clamoring for, and those are probably not the features that most iPad users clamor for. The value system of the real Edge demographic is somewhat different. How many of you, like, me, read the online reviews from the gadgety publications and, when they mentioned the ostensible "cons," mainly thought, "Um, no, that's actually a pro" or "Who cares about that?" Three pounds is heavy? Not compared to my 6 pound laptop or my 14 pound workbag. Smaller is not better if smaller is more fragile, easier to misplace, and harder on one's already overused eyes. And so on.

But then, I'd prefer to pay for a better turntable than receive a free iPod, so consider the source.

Originally Posted by alex_edge

Perhaps we should all start our own company and make dual e-ink screen devices! Now that would be hot.

As soon as I win the lottery, I'll be your first investor. I have been agitating for this very thing for years because thin single screen e-readers are not at all ergonomic compared with a book and don't come close to capturing the book-reading experience. Every once in a while, I look around wistfully to see if a dual screen e-ink reader is in the works somewhere -- and that's how I tripped over the EE.

Originally Posted by borisb

Actually, my gut tells me they sold more (or nearly so) PE's via HSN (over 14,000) than all other PE and EE sales combined. Of course, the HSN sales figure is the only one they've publically disclosed, so we don't know for sure. HSN effectively was a surprisingly far reaching advertising medium, and you just need a small percentage of viewers to respond to get the huge sales. And the eDGe segment was something like an hour long and repeated multiple times. The only seriously similar medium would be prime TV on the US national networks, but that would cost a huge amount and you get only a 1-2 minute commerical at a time (but at least you could grab people's interest). I think they got lucky with HSN.

But I thought there was a lot of bad press because the people who were buying didn't really understand/know what they were buying. I also thought there were a large number of returns from HSN, but I didn't really follow it because I wasn't interested in the PE that much. I just wonder if it was an overall positive experience, HSN. I don't doubt that they sold a lot of units at first, but I'm not sure what the net sales were after returns.

Originally Posted by lorenzoens

I think these people will never be the Edge real hardcore users: they could find more interesting a Boox M90 & M91, a Pocketbook PB902 & 903, Asus dr900, and some other upcoming 9,7 e-ink devices. These are way lighter & portable, 5-8x battery duration, 20-30% less pricey than the Edge.

Long sessions of editing texts is what the Edge is mainly about, with the smart integration of the second screen

That may be. I also don't know the size of this particular demographic, but think it's small. Most people that I know are more interested in new books to read on an eReader than old, out of copyright books. Not much but the Kindle and eDGe came up when I was researching over a year ago. Back then, the price difference between a Kindle DX and an Edge was just around $20, too. So, it was a very good price point at the time. I haven't researched since, so I don't know what is coming out. I also had the very high on my wish list color capability because often the books I read have color illustrations. I don't what I'd buy if I was researching today - not the Kindle.

I think the biggest market is the professional one - teachers/profs/administrators in academia and docs, lawyers, engineers in non-academia. I'm sure I've missed some potential users, too. And, there are students and others who just love their various Edges (like me!). But I don't think we should be marketed to as a main potential customer.

Originally Posted by dcubed2

But I thought there was a lot of bad press because the people who were buying didn't really understand/know what they were buying. I also thought there were a large number of returns from HSN, but I didn't really follow it because I wasn't interested in the PE that much. I just wonder if it was an overall positive experience, HSN. I don't doubt that they sold a lot of units at first, but I'm not sure what the net sales were after returns.

I didn't hear any of that. Anyone have any links about it?