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By Joanna

image image With Amazon, and now Barnes & Noble, coming out with major new releases, it looks like competition is heating up at last in the emerging e-reader marketplace.

Like most e-book fans, I read the news with interest. Following the not unexpected but still disappointing news that neither the international Kindle nor the B&N Nook would be made available to Canadians soon, I started wondering about people who shop based on features and people who shop based on brand loyalty.

I always thought I was a tough customer who researched every purchase carefully and shopped on the features. But as I read the details about these spiffy new products—available to everyone but YOU, Ficbot, you CANADIAN, you—I looked at my Sony in a new light.

Canada love from Sony

Sony loves Canada. They want me to buy their readers. I got mine in a store, even! Retail! From a clerk who even was properly trained and knew his stuff! Sony has given me the Mac software. They have given me the Google Books access.

The Sony Reader is my only hardware besides a proper computer on which I can read library books—and my local library system seems to loves the Sony just as much as the Sony loves them, because they have about 200 novels, as recent as the new Dan Brown best-seller, available in ePub and PDF via Overdrive.  Add in the non-fiction and young adult categories, and there are about 300 books I can download for free, from home, and read on the go. And what does it say on the Overdrive FAQ about the Amazon Kindle? No library books for you! Take that, America!

All kidding aside, my takeaway from all this is an important one. The PR war may be as important, at least in some markets, as the actual product features. Sony has been in the game long enough to prove that they are committed to their e-book customers. I read Project Gutenberg books on a 1st gen Clie when I was living overseas where I had limited access to books. I have progressed since then to other gizmos, including my beloved 505 from Sony. When Amazon offered wireless, Sony matched it. When ePub became an emerging standard, Sony heartily approved. Lesson number one: the features aren’t so important. If I wait long enough, Sony will match them eventually.

And lesson number two: given the choice, I would prefer Sony to, because for the first time in my techie life, I am feeling brand loyal. I buy Macs because they work better for me, not from any particular love of Apple. if someone else made something cheaper that worked just as well, I’d sign up in a heartbeat. But the Sony…nobody else has cared about the Canadian market, and there was Sony going, “Hi, Canada! Amazon locked you out, but WE have a Canadian store! With Mac support! And Google Books.” There was every e-tailer slapping on the geographical restrictions, and a month later, half those books are available through Overdrive at my public library for free. Readable only on…The Sony.

So, if anyone from Sony is reading this, I have a message for you. Sony, you have won the PR war, at least as far as this reader goes. You have earned my loyalty.

I can’t promise I won’t be tempted by a snazzy new feature or two (hint: some people want to use dictionary lookups with languages other than English…) And I can’t promise an Apple Tablet won’t woo me to the dark side. But I appreciate that you’ve been plugging away at the Canadian market when everyone else is shunning us so unjustly. I’ll keep an eye on you, and prefer your products should they do the job for me.

 
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