Quote:
Originally Posted by jswinden
My main point is that Sony always takes a half-hearted approach with its readers. They don't seem to try very hard to sell them. When I bought my first Sony reader it was because I read about it here on MR. I had no idea that Sony had even released a reader. Kindle was all over the news and being discussed a lot. Sony just didn't have that great of a send off for their readers, and still doesn't. You have to fish around on their website just to find their readers. They did the same thing with their Clie line of PalmOS PDAs. The Clies were better than Palm's own PDAs, but Sony never really pushed them much and then dropped them when sales were low. Well duh, sales are going to be low if you don't push a product line.
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I can vouch for the nx73v PDA as vastly superior to even PDA's of today in terms of build quality. Sure it does not have the power of the few modern PDA's that still exist, but my nx73v is still going strong, runs Mobireader software, runs BeCrossword so I can do my NYT xword when I want, works great in direct sun in reflective mode and even plays properly transcoded video extremely well, as good as any current media player in fact. And the case is built like a tank.
But like ya wrote Sony was simply not making enough of a profit so almost over night they shut down the PDA division. It wasn't that the devices were losing money but they were simply not making enough of a profit. This is a Sony trait and is interesting to me how long Sony is going to stay in the dedicated ereading device market. Only thing I see them doing is actually moving into the multi-function device market ala iPad's...this is not saying they are losing money on their ebook readers but those readers may not be generating enough profit for the folks in Japan to keep the division going.
Sony is like Apple in that they are a hardware company BUT where they differ is they have to rely on the software from a 3rd party which has never been something Sony has liked given their "not built here" business mindset. I often wonder if the reason they killed the PDA market was the need to pay Palm for their OS. Now Dell owns the WebOS so that is off the table for Sony as an option for a reader/multi-function device and who knows with Android...so I would not put much money on Sony readers in anything other than the very near term...no more then 3-years out.
That said, I sense Pocketbook is a company that makes great devices, is very open to 3rd party apps and has a wonderful core of folks around the globe. Plus their PB360 should be and example of how well done a pocket sized reader can be using existing tech. No $60 cover just to protect a display that should have a cover to begin with because it's known to be fragile, wonderful ergs and a nice solid OS with very good programmers behind it all.
So I see Pocketbook as a true challenger for the top three brands over the next few years. If nothing else they are a brand to watch very closely. Don't discount the fact that their roots are set in a culture that, despite years of oppression, was a very creative and entrepreneurial nature...in fact they are better at business than most of the so-called "free world"...