Bankrupt iRex can't buy a vowel, gets new lease on life as IRX Innovations

Things were looking bad for iRex Technologies a few months back. Its DR 800 e-reader didn't get to retail in time for the holiday season and, at $450, it wasn't exactly price competitive anyhow. As the company filed bankruptcy, CEO Hans Brons remained optimistic, saying "expectations are still positive," and now we can see why: the company is being reborn as IRX Innovations. This time it will skip the pesky retail market altogether, hoping to find businesses willing to pay the roughly 100% premium over a comparable 3G Kindle or Nook or what have you. It's unclear whether IRX will be offering the same products or will start showing off new, more business-minded ones, but with the WiFi Kindle now shipping for a mere $140 we're hoping the new company has some lesser expensive offerings.

[d0mth0ma5 Posted Aug 8th 2010 9:22AM]

The fewer vowels make it sound cooler, whilst "I" makes it seem more technological. - Idiot Marketer (especially when consumers aren't even involved)

[ragtag Posted Aug 8th 2010 9:44AM]

The Irex readers have been some of the most highest spec readers out there. They've included Wacom technology, which means you can use a stylus, without out the extra layer on top that adds glare and reduces contrast (like on the Sony Touch). They've also had bigger screens, and if I remember correctly, you could actually make your own software for those things. Their screens are also bigger than on most readers. You could technical books, with graphs and similar.

I think their downfall was simply the price, and people comparing it to the Kindle 2. In fact, their readers are much more similar to the Kindle DX (US$379) or the Sony Reader Dailiy Edition (US$249), except in some ways better than both of those.

[techdaemon Posted Aug 8th 2010 6:49PM]

@ragtag Yeah it's pretty silly to compare it to the regular kindle-the DR800's screen resolution is much higher and the wacom touch support isn't exactly cheap.
Too bad with their bankruptcy Verizon cut off the data access.

[TheRealCJ Posted Aug 8th 2010 10:12AM]

I like the new name.

It's more "actual company" than "Apple bandwagon passenger".

[XChrisX Posted Aug 8th 2010 10:19AM]

No one will buy this either way. The truth hurts.

[aardman Posted Aug 8th 2010 10:29AM]

@XChrisX True dat.

[Joseph9307 Posted Aug 8th 2010 11:21AM]

@aardman


Word, yo.

(I want to be cool too!)

[aardman Posted Aug 8th 2010 1:53PM]

@Joseph9307 If you have to work on it then you ain't.

[my password is not qwerty Posted Aug 8th 2010 10:29AM]

And according to Amazon http://amzn.to/9dAMrX the wifi Kindle will not be shipping till September 8th.

So they may get a few sales for business that need readers some time in the near future.

[Carld Posted Aug 8th 2010 11:46AM]

@my password is not qwerty

You are misreading that. Orders placed today won't ship until the 8th. Orders already placed, like mine, will ship on August 27 thru September 4th.

[my password is not qwerty Posted Aug 8th 2010 5:44PM]

@Carld

Should I also include UK shipping times in my post?

I never implied existing order were delayed.

[givemealick Posted Aug 8th 2010 10:44AM]

yeah

[Tristan88888888 Posted Aug 8th 2010 11:02AM]

that post had an odd amount of grammatical errors. usually i wouldnt care, but i spotted 3.

[oldmanhorton Posted Aug 8th 2010 11:20AM]

@Tristan88888888 Vlad will spot them out

[TimStevens Posted Aug 8th 2010 1:33PM]

@Tristan88888888 My mistake, and I fixed two... can't spot the third, though...?

[Tristan88888888 Posted Aug 8th 2010 3:51PM]

@TimStevens
" it wasn't exactly price competitive anyhow"
"some lesser expensive offerings."

just those two phrases seem a little awkward, but i might be wrong too.

[TimStevens Posted Aug 8th 2010 5:29PM]

@Tristan88888888 Well, I'll disagree about the clumsy bit, but they are at least grammatically correct :)

[Tristan88888888 Posted Aug 8th 2010 9:37PM]

@TimStevens
well i am impressed you even checked back in the first place. dedication right there.

[d0mth0ma5 Posted Aug 8th 2010 1:04PM]

@giuvilas88 Whilst technically spam, I did fill this out as it's for University work.

[ttringle Posted Aug 8th 2010 1:16PM]

Ugh,

Fing forum spammers, please die in a fire ASAP!!!

Can we please have some places where advertising is not acceptable. There are already places on websites where you can advertise. Please do not take advantage of the system we use to communicate with each other to cheap out and use it as a spam target.

Losers.

[konfused Posted Aug 8th 2010 3:17PM]

ha .. same would happen to notion ink :) i mean the real greatness is the pixel qi screen, and people think it is notion ink adam !!! come on guys .. its the lcd thats great ! I guess there are so many players in the market ! i am sure these are not times to buy anything .. but to wait what new comes out next week. You buy something and it gets out dated in a week ! Devices should also be given free hardware updates ... like software. So if i have the useless ipad, if it gets a camera, apple should take the old one back from users and give camera one to all ! Otherwise its bad -- they are just sucking money from consumers .. who will never be able to buy anything .. waiting for something new

[Marmite Turkey Posted Aug 9th 2010 8:00AM]

Slightly unrelated, but I just went to plasticlogic's website to see how their never-to-be-released Que ereader was coming on. Delighted to see that their sample content includes a book called 'Making Ideas Happen'. Guess they haven't got round to reading it yet.