Going by a Thursday-released Forrester Research report, "mass-market" attraction of the e-book readers, like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, cannot be achieved unless the cost of these devices is as low as $50, which happens to be far less than their present costs!

Noting the present, price-tags of the e-readers - Kindle DX costing $489; Kindle $299; and Sony $199 - might deter widespread acceptance of these devices, the report said US consumers have "radical expectations" about the time-span in which consumer electronics devices can become commoditized, thereby bringing about a fall in their prices.

The report's author Sarah Rotman Epps, pointing to consumer expectations being dependent on comparisons of single-purpose e-readers with the economical multi-use devices, like netbooks and smartphones, said: "What consumers expect to buy (e-readers) for is completely out of whack with what they cost. That's a vendors' problem more than a consumers' problem."

Epps remarked that in case Amazon and Sony intend looking beyond the fairly limited niche market of their high-end devices, they need to work out to bring about a 'dramatic' reduction in the high manufacturing costs of their respective e-readers.

Some of the notable ways to reduce costs of e-readers can include adoption of the 'subscription' model that is quite familiar in the wireless and mobile phones' arena; and seeking partnerships with newspapers and magazines, frantically searching workable business models!