Shortly afterwards, SoftBook Press launched the SoftBook Reader, along with the SoftBook Network, “an internet-based content delivery service”. The investors of Softbook Press were Random House and Simon & Schuster. With the SoftBook Reader, "people could easily, quickly and securely download a wide selection of books and periodicals using its built-in internet connection". The device, "unlike a computer, was ergonomically designed for the reading of long documents and books."
# Other ebook readers
Other ebook readers were launched in 1999, for example the EveryBook Reader, launched by EveryBook, and the Millennium eBook, launched by Librius.
The EveryBook Reader was "a living library in a single book", with a "hidden" modem to dial into the EveryBook Store, for people “to browse, purchase, and receive full text books, magazines, and sheet music”.
The Millennium eBook was a "small low-cost" ebook reader launched by Librius, a "full service e-commerce company". On the company website, a World Bookstore "delivered digital copies of thousands of books" via the internet.
All these ebook readers didn’t last long. People would have to wait to get through the millenium to see the Gemstar eBook in the U.S. and the Cybook (1st generation) in Europe.
# The Gemstar eBook
The Gemstar eBook was launched in November 2000 after Gemstar bought in January 2000 Nuvomedia (author of the Rocket eBook) and SoftBook Press (author of the SoftBook Reader), the two companies that created the first ebook readers. Two versions of the Gemstar eBook were available for sale in the U.S., the REB 1100 (successor of the Rocket eBook) with a black and white screen, and the REB 1200 (successor of the SoftBook Reader) with a color screen, both produced under the RCA label, belonging to Thomson Multimedia. Gemstar tried to launch them in Europe too, beginning with Germany, while buying 00h00, a French publisher of ebooks, in September 2000. In fall 2002, cheaper ebook readers were launched as GEB 1150 and 2150, produced by Gemstar instead of RCA. Sales were still far below expectations. The company stopped selling ebook readers in June 2003, and stopped selling ebooks the following month.
# The Cybook
The first European ebook reader didn’t work well either. Developed by Cytale, a French company created by Olivier Pujol, the Cybook (21 x 16 cm, 1 kilo) was launched in January 2001. Its memory — 32 M of SDRAM and 16 M of flash memory — could store 15.000 pages, or 30 books of 500 pages. Sales were far below expectations, and Cytale closed its doors in July 2002. This model was later renamed Cybook 1st generation, waiting for more generations to come. The Cybook project was taken over by Bookeen, a company created in 2003 by Michael Dahan and Laurent Picard, two former engineers from Cytale. The Cybook 2nd generation was available in June 2004. The Cybook Gen3 (3rd generation) was available in July 2007, with a screen using the E Ink technology.