Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Companies like iRex, however, are not targetting the consumer eBook reader; they are aimed squarely at the business market, for which the price really is not so much of a consideration. The "rivals" of devices such as the DR1000 are not machines like the Sony or Kindle, but Tablet PCs.
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Harry, I'm not sure your sentiment is correct since the financial meltdown last year. I think businesses are significantly more price conscious than ever, and that is what is being reported in the financial newspapers and magazines.
I know that in my own business, providing editorial services to publishers, where previously publishers were willing to pay a fair price for editing, now they are only willing to pay a very rock bottom price -- even going so far as to say that all they require is someone to run a spell checking program (by rock bottom, I mean that the price is so low that one could not even reach the poverty-level demarcation line in the course of a year).
I think businesses will look at the iRex and ask why should they buy the iRex as opposed to an inexpensive laptop which can do the same thing and more? If the iRex is $399 with an eInk screen why is that a better buy than a laptop for $600 that will do multiple business-related tasks.
Also, Harry, I have trouble seeing the business value of an eInk device, assuming that its competition for the expenditure is a laptop or tablet. The Plastic Logic makes the case of its size combined with the types of documents it can handle, but I don't think (and I admit I do not know) that either it or the iRex permit you to install say, for example, Adobe InDesign or Photoshop, which a laptop does. And I'm not convinced that an eInk screen is suitable for those types of programs. So what exactly is the business advantage and what businesses are being targeted?