Quote:
Originally Posted by Falbe Publishing
Hi,
I realize many of you promoted the Kindle to me and I know people like it but here's why I didn't buy it:
1. It's in its first generation.
2. I did not want to be wirelessly connected to the Amazon store.
3. It cost more than the Sony product.
4. The Sony reader had been out and updated after a few years.
5. Sony has been in the consumer electronics biz for a while.
So, that was my reasoning. I'm sure Kindle is great, but it seems like the Sony is too.
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#5 is not necessarily a good thing. Talk to folks who own a Clie.
The Clie line was Sony's entry in the PDA market, when PDAs were "must have devices" and Palm and Handsrping couldn't make thm fast enough. They ran Palm OS (with some annoying proprietary Sony tweaks), and a number of models were produced.
Sony killed the line and exited the market. The Clies were profitable, but not profitable
enough. Sony management decided they could get a better return on their investment putting the funding elsewhere.
One of the concerns expressed here a while back was whether Sony would be in the ebook market long term, or whether the sales, revenues, and profits would be insufficient and they'd pull the plug. The problem is that Sony is a
big outfit, and needs
big numbers to make something worth doing. Management has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to invest where it will get the best return. We don't know how well reader and ebook sales are doing, so we can't guess whether Sony will stick with it.
(The same comments apply to Amazon and the Kindle, but they are in a different position. They are a consumer oriented company, selling a variety of goods as a retailer. It was fairly easy for them to add ebooks to their line, since they already sold pbooks and had the established relationships with publishers. And they can leverage their content to provide Kindle sales. Prices on ebooks are generally cheaper at Amazon...if you have a Kindle. If either vendor decides the idea isn't working and to fold the operation, I'd call Sony more likely to do so.)
______
Dennis
Who owns neither device, and wants neither. I need color, and a device that does other things besides display ebooks.