Astak hopes for a color E Ink machine in the next nine or ten months.
Meanwhile Astak is seriously wooing chains such as Costco and Wal-Mart. The company already sells security cameras through those companies.
Info above is from Bob Barry, Astak business development executive for North America.
Library and school markets, too
Needless to say, if color materializes, that could make the Astak readers more appealing for the K-12 market—which is among Astak’s other targets, as well as the libraries. No word on pricing of a color model.
Rebranding by major publishing conglomerate?
In a TeleBlog inteview by phone, Bob also revealed:
- One of the world’s major publishing companies has approached Astak for a deal. What’s ahead? Astak Mentor readers rebranded by this giant of the trade? A deal like that could be a natural for book clubs, especially in genres such as romance. Speculation on my part. Let’s see what happens now that Astak has drawn interest. Another possible partner would be Fictionwise, which, as Bob sees it, could sell the machines and maybe even offer a lifetime discount on FW’s e-books. Again, speculation.
- A price as low as $150-$160 for the five-inch model is still possible. Within three weeks, Astak, which plans a June release of the devices with five-inch displays, hopes to lock up prices for that one as well as the six- and 9.7-inch models. The big-screen models might come a choice of Linux or Win CE.
- Astak would love to include both Mobipocket and Fictionwise’s eReader software in the same machines. But because of a Mobi exclusivity requirement, Astak might have to sell an eReader version under a product line name other than “Mentor.” Astak is also investigating the possibility of a deal with Adobe. Could Adobe Digital Editions, which includes the ePub fomat among others, become available on an Astak machine? Encouragingly, Bob supports the ePub concept of a universal format. What’s more, Astak might be open to the inclusion of FBReader, which would please many open source fans.
Yes, Astak is aware of left-handers’ needs. I do notice that the Mentor in Nate the Great’s photo includes page-changing controls that would be far more convenient for lefties than the arrangement shown in this image to the, er, right from the Astak Web site.
Related: TeleRead and MobileRead posts discussing the Astak demo at this past Wednesday’s IDPF conference.
