Published: Friday, 19th June, 2009 9:00am

E-reader to take on international firms

by Alan Bunce

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BANKER turned entrepreneur Neil Jones has taken on Amazon and Sony with his own electronic book reader.

Mr Jones, from Caversham, has invented the Cool-er, an electronic reader that is lighter and cheaper than those made by his big rivals and available in eight colours. He expects to finalise deals with major retailers this month.

Mr Jones, who launched credit check business N2Check which he sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 2007, is an avid reader himself. But when he wrote his own novel, he found it was very difficult to get published.

He planned a website to allow authors a direct market to publication on e-readers but found a more immediate need for an improved e-reader. He says his Cool-er is simpler to use, has more storage capacity and can show text in bigger sizes.

Books, downloadable from his own bookshop of 300,000 titles, can be read in eight languages, and transferred to five different Cool-ers. At £189+VAT the Cool-er is £10 cheaper than Amazon"s Kindle.

He said: 'The idea was to design an e-reader for the reader rather than for the technologist. It has gone beyond our wildest expectations. The feedback has been immense.'

He expects to be number two to Amazon in the US and be head-to-head with Sony, which makes Readers, in Europe within a year. He added: 'We will actually be ahead in terms of units sold by this time next year.'

His company Interead has taken offices at Davidson House and will be recruiting.

See www.interead.co.uk