Sony has officially exited the e-reader business. The electronics giant recently told the BBC that they don't have any plans to develop a successor to their current model, the PRS-T3, because e-readers are no longer economically viable.
These days, e-books are synonymous with Amazon and its Kindle reader. But you may be surprised to learn that Sony beat Amazon to the market with the 2004 release of the Librie. That device, the first to use an e-ink display, weighed 190 grams and could hold roughly 500 books on its 10MB of internal memory.
Amazon's Kindle came along in 2007 and although its hardware was inferior to what Sony was offering at the time, customers flocked to Amazon due to its massive range of e-books. Because of that, Sony's three year jump on Amazon ultimately had little effect.
The news shouldn't come as much of a shock considering Sony quit selling e-books earlier this year, first in the US then within Europe and Australia. In its absence, the company directed buyers to rival Kobo's e-bookstore.
Sony isn't the only company to succumb to Amazon's dominance as Barnes & Noble has also struggled to keep pace as of late. The bookseller recently inked a deal with Samsung in what's likely a last-ditch effort to try and keep the Nook division alive.
For Amazon, it's one less e-reader on the market to contend with.