This is sort of sad new for me, I'm not a great sony fan, but I've had one of their early e-readers since before the Kindle came out here (as has my father), and it's been wonderful and still is.
For one thing despite it being ancient by tech standards it still seems to have features that current Kindle's don't have in it's UI, and an easier/better UI.
I can see why the ereader market is in a degree of trouble, as unless you're selling the content as well, you can't really make a profit as the devices themselves seem to last a long time and there isn't really a pressing need to update your ereader every year or two in order to run new apps, unlike tablets or phones.
So with Amazon taking up a huge chunk of the market, and Kobo seemingly undercutting Sony on the hardware I can see why they'd be pulling out, as it's not going to be making them enough money on the hardware alone.
When I was looking at a new reader a few months back it was between the Kobo Aura HD and the T3 as they both had features that were "must have's" for me, and were not tied into the Amazon ecosystem (I like the kindle paperwhite, but it has annoying limits in it's cataloging system if you load your own content on, and the Aura HD has a slightly larger screen).
What I am surprised about with the ereader, and ereader accessory market is that no one has yet released either a reader, or just a case that has a solar cell, it should be entirely possible to make a reader/cover that can be largely charged simply by leaving it in the light, as the current generation of cells are pretty good, and the battery consumption of a reader is low enough that in standby (and probably even in use in good light on a beach), it should be possible to charge it from cells built into the cover/case.