Plastic Logic has everything going for its forthcoming e-reader, due this week: major media attention, a potential rivalry with Amazon's Kindle, a deal with Barnes & Noble to use Barnes & Noble's new eBookstore as its exclusive e-book content provider and now another booster in AT&T, which confirmed Wednesday that it would supply the
3G network to Plastic Logic's e-reader.
But with all that firepower, all Plastic Logic can muster for bravado is that it isn't interested in eating Amazon's Kindle lunch?
"We're actually targeting a different type of customer, the business professional, while Amazon has been targeting the leisure book-reading customers," said Daren Benzi, Plastic Logic's vice president of business development, in an interview with Fox Business News Tuesday night.
Come on now, Plastic Logic. The field is wide open for potential challengers to Amazon's Kindle dominance, and even though your e-reader still doesn't have an announced price and is many months away from actually arriving, the wind is at your back. And it won't be for long; Amazon's Kindle popularity effectively opened the floodgates for widespread interest in e-books and e-reading, and everyone from Google and Sony to Apple and the Hearst Corporation are working on their answers to Kindle.
When Plastic Logic's e-reading plans were first announced, it didn't seem like too much of a threat, and Amazon did the Plastic Logic e-reader's large-screen appeal one better by releasing a large-screen Kindle, the Kindle DX, in May.
But it's different now. Plastic Logic's partnership with Barnes & Noble -- itself hoping to revive flagging fortunes with the 700,000-title strong eBookstore -- represents the first real bit of Kindle competition seen in a while, especially when compared to most of what's out there right now.
There's no harm in Plastic Logic positioning its e-reader for a particular demographic, but with Barnes & Noble and AT&T behind it, why isn't it presenting itself as a true Kindle challenger, especially with all the Kindle public relations fumbles Amazon's made lately?
