2. What's Sony Afraid Of?

Whenever I ask Sony's PR folks for an evaluation loaner, the answer is inevitably "We only have a few units. I'll put you on the list for one of them." Except for the T350P, I've never seen a review unit: not for the UX180P or the UX280P or even the tiny Sony Mylo Internet communications device not mentioned above. And though I asked quite a while ago no Sony PRS-500 has shown up in my TG Publishing mailbox.

Clearly a company of Sony's size could find the bucks somewhere in its deep pockets to make maybe 5 or 10 or even 1,000 review units available to product evaluators. This makes me wonder what Sony is so afraid of. The company likely will spend millions of dollars advertising the PRS-500. At the retail value of the Reader, 10 evaluation units would cost Sony $3,500 and 100 would require Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's Chairman and CEO, to pop for a paltry $35,000.

I don't think the issue is money. It's a desire to shroud new products in a fog of mystery, a fear of honest reviews and a certain disdain for most of the product evaluation press. That's all too bad.

Not having a unit to test rarely deters me from evaluating a product. If there's a will, there's generally a way. I can't tell you where the Sony PRS-500 came from, but rest assured, I had to do some clandestine skulking in the alleys of Los Angeles to get one and Sony played no role in my getting the eBook Reader.

One of my PRS-500 sources? Nope, just someone in a Sony PR picture pulling a Reader out of her purse.

Sony and Sir Stringer, listen up. I'm putting you on notice! This is the last time I go crawling around muddy alleys tracking down Sony product evaluation units. And, I'm not going to take the press releases you send and turn them into news stories either. As exciting as your products are, I'll focus on stuff from vendors who don't slyly sit in the corner with sneaky smiles on their faces and their legs crossed so tightly that even the smallest product can neither get in nor out.