At BEA we had a chance to check out the BeBook e-reader, produced in Holland and headed for distribution in the US market. CEO Johan Hagenbeuk said that he is having discussions with a number of potential partners, including both major retailers and publishers themselves. While his line of devices offers prices competitive to Cool-er (and less than Sony Reader and Kindle), he’s looking to encourage cellphone-style service models that subsidize the price of the reader in exchange for a contract to buy a certain amount of content. Hagenbeuk suggested that he company is very close to launching a simple […]