According to Asus president Jerry Shen, the company plans to debut an e-book reader under the Eee name as early as the end of this year. The Eee branding has been exclusive widely used amongst Asus' netbook PCs. Citing industry sources, DigiTimes has reported that MSI is also looking to enter the e-book reader market.
The sources made it known that entering the market with an e-book reader is even easier than doing so with a netbook. They also added that the new devices' content delivery platform could make or break their success.
Most of the demand for e-book readers has been in North America and Europe. According to the sources, the device has yet to take off in Asia because of a difference in reading habits. With that in mind, they are conservative about the business potential e-book readers can bring to Taiwan's PC vendors and content publishers.