Quote:
Originally Posted by roncri
Basically the same. If this ships in October fine, if not, I'm getting one of the new Sony units. It's been over a year since NAEB started talking about a reader, I'm done waiting.
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Roncri,
Sorry to hear that. But you must understand, NAEB is four people - with limited resources. When we first started looking into bringing out an ebook reader, we were hoping to have an OEM make one for us. That proved to be *FAR* too expensive an option - and it still is. So we decided to see if we could become an agent for/market an eInk reader manufactured by one of the current sources - an ebook reader which would support both a popular DRM'd format as well as non-DRM ebooks.
At the time we made the decision to more closely examine Bookeen's Cybook Gen3, it was pretty much impossible to work out a deal with Sony and Hanlin used it's funky WOL format - which has the same proprietary issues as Sony does. That left either STAReBOOK or iRex's iLiad with the outside possibility of Bookeen. We've never really had a chance to study the STAReBOOK and the iLiad is so far out of the price range of our potential customer base as to preclude working with them.
That left Bookeen. So what would you have us do? Shove Yet Another Unknown and Proprietary Format down your throat by going with the current generation of Hanlin readers? Throw away all our efforts - and Bookeen's - and re-attempt to make our own unit? Or attempt to work a deal with iRex and say 'screw you' to those of our customers who can't afford the luxury model?
Please, you tell me. I'd really like to know.
Derek