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I don't consider Sony to be in the same boat as Irex. In my mind, Irex is a niche company who does not have the resources and brand recognition that Sony has, plus their products were usually very expensive and mainly sold in Europe. It was really not surprising that they couldn't keep up with the competition ( no offense, Irex. I acknowledge your contributions towards helping ebook readers make it to where they are today, and I thank you).
Every refresh of Sony's Reader line so far has offered some compelling new features and qualities that made people want to buy them, even if they were on the expensive side.
They probably won't be selling tons of their Readers over the next few months, but I expect their next product refresh to have hardware specs comparable to the K3, plus maybe a few surprises to keep it interesting and help justify the slightly higher price tag. Of course they won't sell as many units as Amazon, but they will probably sell enough to keep them in the market for awhile.
I think Kobo has more to worry about than Sony does. Sony is no doubt on the verge of announcing a new product line to compete with the K3 anyway, but the bare-bones $149 Kobo reader is a brand new product! How on earth will it compete with the feature rich K3 at $139?
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