[CommonReader]

I have no idea what that guy was smoking. I currently know of no German company that is even developing e-ink readers. txtr simply didn't have the funds to bring their reader into the market and it is simply an ebook-shop now.
Thalia's OYO has been an effort that looks ok when you look at photos but in reality it was always an awful piece of rebadged Chinese kit with seething troubles. I am sure that there were medieval monks that could copy a book faster by hand than the OYO can turn a page. The second generation is slightly better but it's still at two generations behind Sony and Kindle. To Thalia's credit they are still selling Sony and they never pursued some walled garden strategy. Germany's largest b&m book chain has stopped selling e-ink readers completely and they are selling some awful Trekstor kind of TFT readers now. They are selling them dirt cheap and you can get them in different colours but that's about all the positive things you can say about them. At least you have a decent selection of readers in the electronics stores (Saturn, Media markt) now. Apart from Sonys they are also selling the Kobos and Pocketbooks. Unfortunately Bokeen is a no show even though I was able to buy a Cybook Opus (cute little reader) for my daughter last Christmas at Weltbild.
All said and done the Sonys are still the dominant brand apart from the Kindle which has made inroads into the market.
Anyway, the level of choice we have as regards e-ink readers is quite disappointing wherever you go. Just compare this with the bewildering number of different smartphones available today.