For the second time this year Irex Technologies have postponed the direct-to-consumer sales of their E Ink based Iliad e-book tablet. Initially the Eindhoven, The Netherlands based company of former Philips engineers promised that their e-reader would be for sale through their webshop in April this year. This launch date was then postponed to May due to a glitch in the webshop. Now, the consumer launch is postponed to September 2006 … or so Irex Technologies says:
In order to be able to manage the indicated response, iRex Technologies will follow a phased approach with respect to iLiad deliveries:
- We will first roll-out the sales to our B2B customers in Europe, who will be personally invited by e-mail in June to place their orders.
- In alignment with the availability of the formal approbation certificates, our B2B contacts in other parts of the world will be invited to enroll by July.
- To individual consumers who have sent in their request for notification, we recommend to wait for our consumer version, which will have a more extended functionality (September 2006).
(Quote from the Irex website, end of business hours, May 31, 2006.)
Prospective buyers at Mobileread.com, a website for early adopters of mobile technology, have expressed surprise at Irex’ peculiar lack of communication. Earlier Irex product manager Angel Ancin told Teleread: “Most likely around May 10th, we will (finally) start actively using our website for communication.” We asked Angel two weeks ago what exactly Irex meant by that, but the only reply I recieved so far was a short e-mail several days ago stating “I could’t answer yet.
I will get back to you soon.”
With both the postponement of the Sony Reader and the Irex Iliad, the year of the e-book seems to be pushed back further and further towards 2007.
But then in a message hidden deep in the Mobileread forums, member Maple, identified earlier by Mobileread.com administrators as a Jinke employee, comes with a surprising tidbit about the third E Ink based e-book reader planned for this year: “Hi friends, long time no see. I got the news that the sample of V2 will be expected to be availalble by the end of June. And I also heard that the v8 got a good market responses. Recently, Jinke will increase the output of V8. And they’re talking the business cooperation with some European companies.” Perhaps not very clear, but at least Jinke seem to be communicating.
Tip for Dutch readers: I have a short article about the Irex Iliad in June’s PC Plus Magazine. There’s nothing in there that I haven’t published here already, but it’s written for an audience of older new computer users.
Does anyone know what’s going on here?
They seem to lackthe production capacity.
There’s so much content out there… I don’t understand why a manufacturer doesn’t just cash-in on them.
I think there’s a conflict of interest between device manufacturers and publishers. Think about the iPod (again). When people buy the one that can store thousands of songs, does it mean that they’ll buy that many songs 1 dolar each? Or that they’re just uploading their existing collection?
iPos as a device benefited big time from the partly illegal mp3 downloads by all the peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
I think an ebook-reader manufacturer would do so too…
there’s lots of legal free content out there, and probably a device would catalyze the file-sharing again, there would appear a lot of not-so-legal content too.
Why are these guys going after B2B?
“Does anyone know what’s going on here?”
No idea.
“Why are these guys going after B2B?”
Because it has been their business model from day one. And it’s probably their business model because they think businesses can carry the initially high costs of an Iliad.
I’m wondering how a daily newspaper will take over the 700$ cost of the Iliad…
“And it’s probably their business model because they think businesses can carry the initially high costs of an Iliad.”
Businesses just don’t care about iliad. It’s clear that all potential manufacturers are afraid of big publisher’s lawyers and of other IP owners huge litigation capabilities.
So much for the dedicated e-book devices. Now only remaining good candidates are UMPC devices, when they eventually go down in price. Or maybe when IP laws are changed after WW3.
Good-bye, TeleRead.
Ouch, ouch, ouch!!!
I can’t really seem to adequately express the depths of my disappointment on hearing this latest news about the Iliad.
To me, the Iliad evokes a future I very much want to live in. A future where literary content is so much easier to use and access – no need to maintain & organize that big, heavy library I have now. Heck, I’m completely prepared to pay the same price I pay for paper books/magazines/newspapers that I pay right now – they’ll be more useful to me in e-format, so I’d count it as a net win.
I know that future doesn’t arrive the day I get my Iliad – still a lot of issues to sort out. But a device like this (with both display and handwritten input) is the foundation of that vision; we can’t even get started without it. So I’m pretty crushed to see that future moving off into the misty distance …
Does anyone know where iRex and Sony are sourcing their e-ink displays? Is it possible that this is the real bottleneck?
“Does anyone know where iRex and Sony are sourcing their e-ink displays? Is it possible that this is the real bottleneck?”
If it were, then why would Jinke so confidently proclaim that they are considering upping the V8 production?
E Ink, by the way, is the brand name of this particular type of e-paper, so that’s where Irex and Sony get their displays: from E Ink.
Here’s an interesting thought. Are the Chinese perhaps favoring themselves rather than iRex, as far as components? I don’t recall the exact arrangements between iRex and the Chinese, who have their own iLiad equivalent. Please note I have no particular reason to wonder about these things–I’m just asking the question out of the blue. – David
Well, that’s it for the Illiad. These bait and switch tactics have been used many times in the past, and those few companies who eventually bring a product to market usually come to a bad end.
We, the developers, early adopters and evangelists deserve better that to have carrots dangled in front of us, then be slapped in the face. Don’t think for one minute that Irex is not counting on us to tell our friends, spread the word in the industry and influence company purchasing.
I don’t like being used. I will now be recommending against the Iliad. There’s several eInk devices about to launch, and even Sony’s product is half the price of the Illiad.
Why should I develop my product for a device from company who’s actions so far imply that they don’t intent to sell their device to the general public? The B2B sales strategy cuts my potential user base down to a fraction of the few people who buy an expensive product from a webstore in europe.
A new generation of LCDs is now being produced, which uses a fraction of the power of current LCD panels. Yes, still much more than eInk, but so what if you have to put the device on a charger once a week instead of once a month? Color and millisecond refresh so the device can also be your calendar, contact manager, browser and video player makes for a much better device for a grand. Oh, and it works in the dark, one thing that eInk devices don’t.
There is some new informtaion here
at the mobileread.com forums:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=29334#post29334
Apparently it will still be possible for individuals to purchase the Iliad sometime soon, it just isn’t recommended because the software isn#t complete.
The “consumer verison” that is expected in September is just a version that contains the final software, no hardware changes. If you buy the Iliad at the next possible time, you get all the updates and end up with the same device in September.
What I’d really be worried about however is the fact that they have Battery-life estimations (21 hours with some Wifi or 10000+ pageturns when you only read) up on their website (the 10000+ pageturns is also official information) but they still have no working power-management even now, so how did they arrive at these figures and will the iliad ever be capable of reaching these numbers?
Maybe the Hanlin V2 will be a good alternative while we all wait for the next generation of eink or similar technology to appear. The V8 is now starting to become available in Russia (we have an owner at the Mobileread.com forums named TaKir who promised to da a review sometime in the near futeure. His device still has a slightly beta-ish firmware, but apparently it works quite well already. The V8 launched quietly in china at the beginning of the year and is being ported to the eastern-european countries through local distribution cahnnels and adapted for russian font-types and such.
I’m just waiting for September 30th where they say they are going to be delayed to October 31st and repeat the message the last day of each following month.
Irex didn’t just discover on the last day that the Iliad would not be available to consumers, so why not keep us informed. For two straight months they waited till the last day of the month to announce the delay. If they kept us generally updated I could understand, but they chose to keep mum while we kept the buzz alive on this device.
I have to wonder about a company that treats it’s customers this way. I guess I will ask my Cybook to forgive me and take me back 😉
Well, it seems like a repeat of Data Evolution’s Clio NXT. Anybody remember? They’ve been putting that product off for about a year or so. Still nothing. Maybe it’s a new business model to draw investors. Or poor planning. Whatever.
I don’t think I’ll pay any more attention to new product announcements until I can actually purchase it.
> I’m just waiting for September 30th where they say they are going to
> be delayed to October 31st and repeat the message the last day of
> each following month.
That’s exactly how I feel now… I decided not to go for Sony Reader as iLiad seems to have better display, but now I’m reconsidering that.
All I need is a good reader device for my PDF files that does’t hurt my eyes. I don’t need all other fancy software.
I am travelling to the US next week and was hoping for Sony to release the Sony Reader by then. As you may know, the Sony Reader is not going to be available on the European market any time soon. Unfortunately I seem be out of look – there is no sign of an immediate release of the Sony Reader. Bummer.
@H if you don’t need all the bells and whistles of the iliad then try the Hanlin V2 which is (according to Jinke) going to be available at the end of june. They always talk about “Samples” being available which nobody really understands, but I think they mean the actual product.
Déjà vu…
AmigaOS 4.0 has been promised to be released “in a few months” for about 5 years now. The hardware became available in 2002, and has since then been through several revisions and versions. The software, which was promised to be just around the corner, still isn’t released in its final form (the 4th “pre-release” (=beta?) version of the OS was released 4 months ago).
In fact, iRex is behaving exactly like Amiga&co with this kind of delay-and-lie tactic, telling “it’ll be released shortly” when they are fully aware of the fact that what they are saying is incorrect. I’ve been speaking very positively about the iLiad to a lot of people, but this changes now. Instead I will recommend everyone against having anything to do with iRex until it has been shown that the company really will deliver.
The Amiga has been a dying platform almost since its inception, and definitely since 1994. Those who have been listening to tall tales of new Amigas since then have been deluding themselves seriously.
Irex on the other hand does not yet have a track record, and until recently deserved the benefit of the doubt (and perhaps still does).
Bryan Said,
“Does anyone know where iRex and Sony are sourcing their e-ink displays? Is it possible that this is the real bottleneck?”
Branko Collin Said,
“E Ink, by the way, is the brand name of this particular type of e-paper, so that’s where Irex and Sony get their displays: from E Ink.”
2 Bryan and Branko Collin: All theese displays for Irex, Sony, Jinke come from PVI (www.pvi.com.tw).
> The Amiga has been a dying platform almost since its inception, and definitely
> since 1994.
That’s irrelevant.
> Those who have been listening to tall tales of new Amigas since then have
> been deluding themselves seriously.
Huh? There have been several new PowerPC based Amiga computers the last five years, so if that counts as “new Amigas” then you’re the one deluding yourself. AOS4 isn’t vaporware either, since it’s been available in pre-beta, beta, “pre-release” form for a long time, so if that’s what’s required for those PPC computers to be considered Amigas then you’re still deluding yourself.
Anyway, my point was that the companies involved knew they wouldn’t get the software finished in a year, yet they told the public that it would be finished in less than half a year. Then they’ve pushed the release date forward a few months every few months, and they’ve been doing this for almost 5 years now.
In April, when iRex told the public that the iLiad would be available for the public the same month, they were just lying. If this isn’t the case then I’d be very interested to know what unforeseen obstacles could push the release date forward from a few weeks, first by a month and then by four additional months.
Now, there might be other stuff going on as well. Maybe everyone at iRex will go on vacation for a month in a month and thus wouldn’t be able to provide the support etc. in the summer. If this was the case then they should still tell the truth instead of lies. They can’t just keep changing the story. First they couldn’t release it because they had problems with their web shop. Then they changed the story and now they say the software isn’t finished yet.
The fact that they don’t answer emails doesn’t really make them look great either. I sent them a small email with only a few questions (about battery life, I think) many months ago, but haven’t received an answer yet. After sending an additional email stating that it might not be a good idea to completely ignore potential customers they replied that my email was of technical nature and went to the technical department and will be answered in time. Well, it’s been a very long time now and yet no answer.
> Irex on the other hand does not yet have a track record, and until recently
> deserved the benefit of the doubt (and perhaps still does).
Of course. And if they deliver and if it’s good then I will probably continue telling everyone to get iLiads, and get one myself, too. Until then I’ll recommend against having anything to do with them, thought. I mean, what else could I do if the company first says “it’s basically ready and will be released within a month” and then after two months says “it won’t be ready until after 4 months”?
> In April, when iRex told the public that the iLiad would be available for the
> public the same month, they were just lying. If this isn’t the case then I’d
> be very interested to know what unforeseen obstacles could push the
> release date forward from a few weeks, first by a month and then by
> four additional months.
I think without having more information, saying that they were “just lying” is
overstating the issue. I can think of any number of scenarios where this
sort of delay could occur. A typical scenario is: programmer looks over
specs, sees that he has one more item to complete before meeting spec
for shipping; doesn’t look too difficult, tells boss ‘1 month’; boss tells
marketing “set the date!” Programmer starts in on problem, discovers
that there is a second-order effect, fix is more difficult
than thought; still wants to get product out on time, so sweats bullets trying
to make it work — but ends up needing another month. In the meantime,
beta testing shows that people using it as a general-purpose reader run
into some unanticipated issues; say, Japanese fonts work inconsistently,
or popular alternative book format glitches on certain input — things that weren’t
part of the original spec of a B-to-B product for newspaper publishing, but
good for a general reader. Policy discussion by bosses says ‘support this’.
Programmer thows up hands and says ‘OK, but it will take another 4 months’.
Current software good enough for the original specific market, but needs
more work to be a good general-purpose tool. [Reminder that I’m just
positing a way this could happen, I have no more real info than any other
non-insider…]
This sort of scenario is quite common in software development; it is not
as much of a science as one might wish it to be sometimes. (Speaking
here as a software developer myself!) And of course, feature-creep is
a problem regardless of how much science one can throw at the timing
estimates… While it would certainly be nice if a company would tell the
public about the delay in this kind of detail, that’s very very rare.
If we get past October and they still haven’t shipped for individual users, *then*
I’ll start to seriously wonder if they aren’t just putting us on…
–John N.
> A typical scenario is […]
I’m a software developer myself, so I do have a clue about these things. Any company that is a few weeks off from shipping a product like the iLiad should have had the software ready (or at least feature-frozen) for months already and have had beta testers running the software for at least half a year.
Anyway, if a small bugfix a few weeks from launch requires an overhaul of the whole code base then the code is in a shape that would make me even more sceptical of the success of the iLiad.
I find it more likely that the marketing people (which usually aren’t very sharp to begin with) have misunderstood the software people (which usually aren’t very good at explaining things in a way that non-coders would understand). But then it should have cleared up at the first deadline and the release date would have been pushed immediately half a year forward instead of only a month forward.
I know of course, many reasons can lead to delays of a product.
BUT…
As we’ve found out at Mobileread, Irex is not simple able itself to do something with it’s site – they said, their site is served by a third company.
So, they should ask this third company to do last changes at their site at least several days ago.
But at the same time they were telling a barefaced lie about “couple of days web-shop opening”. THAT is very bad, but not the delay itself.
Hi
THe Jinke V8 has an English mode and does most of what the V2 is supposed to do in the future. Plus, the V8 is on sell on Ebay.
@samuel foxwell
I’ve read your claims over at the mobileread.com forum (in 2 threads) and now here…I’m happy to hear about the news, but somehow i can’t find the V8 on any ebay site I know and the news about “english mode” isn’t really new…
The trouble is/was that the V8 doesn’t properly format english text. The russians have now (with help from an americal apparently) startet to translate the device properly, create improved conversion software and stuff…
If you could point us to these ebay V8 devices we could take a look and try to find out how good the news really are.
Thanks.
Clio NXT is due to be released as soon as the final bugs are worked out. I communicate with the company (Data Evolution
Corporation) CEO on a regular basis. It was not the fault of Data Evolution that the product is so late.