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Originally Posted by harryE123
it's not that the public is not ready for 9.7" it's that no one can undercut amazon in the price to offer something similar because amazon is subsidising it with book sales. That's why irex went bust, it has neither amazon's clout nor it's business model, and it's in the business model.
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But that's simply not true: there are dozens of companies in the e-reader game. Irex went bust because of poor execution. There's also no evidence Amazon is using ebook sales to prop up its Kindle sales; management, in fact, has stated otherwise. Dozens of vendors were selling e-ink devices well below Amazon's prices, and some still are. You're not suggesting every vendor is selling below cost?
Amazon is also enjoying volume discounts from manufacturers because -- through online sales along until June -- customers were flocking to Amazon online buying something they couldn't touch ahead of time. That speaks to the strength of the entire reader environment Amazon is building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harryE123
Plus, we are in a recession and already plenty of gadgets pry for attention, smart phones, ipads, gadgets of all sorts, computers...it's not easy for a single purpose book reading device.
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The recession has had no impact on e-reader sales in 2008, 2009 and 2010 as far as I can see. The devices have sold strongly for multiple players; new challengers have entered the market; existing players have enhanced their products and lowered prices; the public has enthusiastically signed on. And some vendors made the wrong gambled in building their business plans or simply executed badly. That's life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by harryE123
But trust me, the market is there, and the public is ready, a decent a4 or close pdf e-reader will be a best seller in academia and people who read lots of technical articles for example.
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This may be the only thing I agree with you on.
A number of devices have come to market trying to figure out what works best. What the public is not ready for is the current cost of producing such units. It's probably something that looks like an Android tablet -- and will be cheap enough to serve this market may arrive in 2011.