Astak's 5-Inch Pocket PRO eBook Reader Collaborates with Adobe Systems and Makes Its Debut
Astak Inc.'s new 5-inch Pocket PRO eBook reader collaborates with Adobe Digital Editions to provide a strong contender that will give Amazon's Kindle a run for its money.
Context & Ripple Effects
Astak has been circling Amazon and Sony from below for a while: in December 2008 PC World covered how its reader undercuts both Kindle and Sony Reader prices, making cheap Chinese-built hardware the entry point into a market the New York Times had already flagged back in 2007 as one that "just may catch on." The Pocket PRO debut is the next step in that playbook.
What changes with this launch is not the screen size or the sticker but the library: Adobe Digital Editions support means the device reads Adobe-DRM titles sold outside Amazon's store — the same open-ecosystem bet Sony was making — while Amazon keeps Kindle buyers locked to its own catalog. With publishers separately eyeing dedicated readers as a newspaper-delivery channel per the Times' May 2009 big-screen e-reader piece, format openness is becoming the main differentiator among the sub-Kindle-priced entrants.
First-order effects
- Pocket PRO buyers get access to Adobe-DRM ebook stores and library-lending catalogs instead of being funneled through Amazon's Kindle shop, at a device price positioned against the cheaper end of the Kindle/Sony range.
- Adobe Systems gains another shipping hardware partner for Digital Editions, extending its DRM footprint beyond Sony into the low-cost reader tier.
Second-order effects
- Every budget reader maker now faces the same choice Astak made — license Adobe Digital Editions or compete against a rival whose catalog advantage costs nothing extra — which pushes Adobe toward de facto gatekeeper status for non-Amazon devices.
- Amazon's response lever shifts from hardware pricing to store lock-in: the more Adobe-compatible devices ship, the more Kindle's value rests on its content ecosystem rather than the device itself.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the US reader market polarizes into a closed-store camp anchored by Amazon and an Adobe-EPUB camp where hardware vendors compete on price because their catalogs are interchangeable — a structure that would also decide who wins when libraries and newspapers distribute books digitally.
- A fragmented, multi-vendor Adobe ecosystem gives publishers bargaining leverage over any single retailer, weakening the one-store distribution model Amazon established with the Kindle.
The trend: E-book hardware is splitting between Amazon's closed Kindle store and an open Adobe Digital Editions camp where low-cost makers like Astak compete on price rather than catalog.