Until now, Sony’s e-reader product line has very much fallen by the wayside thanks to the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iPad.
But there’s a chance that will still change, as Sony is finally ready to come out guns a-blazing against the modern-day e-reader players.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Sony VP Phil Lubell reportedly said a new line-up of the Reader gadgets will be available in August.
Sony was one of the first to mass-market a personal electronic reading device, but its detriment was being a bit too far ahead of its time.
Sony’s Reader used to have a monopoly on the e-book market, but it was always a niche industry until Amazon came out with its Kindle device. Since then, the Reader has fallen by the wayside.
Even though there were displays at virtually every Borders store, sales of the Sony Reader were far from stellar, and were nothing like what Amazon saw as soon as it launched the Kindle.
Instead of aggressively trying to compete against the Kindle, though, Sony seemingly did nothing. Then Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Borders’ Kobo were released. That spurred a price war among the three bookstore devices, but even still Sony just did nothing.
Now it is finally following suit, but it may be too little too late. The Reader does not have a mobile data connection and its e-ink is based on older technology. The Reader has pretty much fallen out of the e-book discussion.
