Sony’s New Reader Seeks Premium Pricing (SNE, T, AMZN)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) must be betting that it can retake the lead and it must be betting hard that the economic recession’s effects of creating high price-sensitivity are soon to end.  In the war to capture the e-book market, where it was effectively the first real entrant, the company has unveiled its “Reader Daily Edition” coming in at a price of $400.00.  AT&T (NYSE: T) will provide Wi-Fi access for the reader.  The first details were  in the WSJ Digits blog, and the formal pricing appears to be $399 as its wireless e-reader.

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has its popular Kindle reader priced at $299.00 and it has been wireless and is integrated right into the media section for Amazon.com.  It is clearly the more popular device today despite the notion that Sony has had an e-book on the market for much of this decade.

There are no reviews yet to determine how functional this really is, but the premium pricing is probably going to be an issue here.  If a price-conscious consumer can buy the already-cool gadget for $100 less, what are the odds of scoring a major gain?  Sony does already have a Pocket Edition of the e-reader at $199.99, and the Touch edition is $299.99.

The full details of the new reader are here from Sony.

Jon C. Ogg
August 25, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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