Do you think commuters and people who travel on business (regularly, I have meetings but two or three every two weeks or so) prefer reading off things like Kindles to books (I know you can't generlaize completely, just asking your opinion) because Kindles feel more like laptops and so the technology sort of integrates with their other work devices?
I think commuters may prefer reading from e-readers more than folks who don't have long commutes not because the technology integrates with their other work devices. I think they may prefer it because it is a convenience.
My wife, for example, frequently drives an hour to where she's working. She isn't reading while commuting, as she's driving. She reads during lunch hours, and occasionally when work is slow. She's a medical professional. She doesn't spend much of her day in front of a computer - her work devices are stethoscopes and syringes.
She likes the e-reader for the convenience. Ever see a novel in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series? The things are monsters. When she starts getting near the end of one, she wants the second with her to start if she finishes the first. That would mean she'd have to carry two major physical objects around.
Or, she could just carry one Nook.
This, compared to me - I do spend most of my day in front of a computer, but I don't have an e-reader. Of the two of us, I'm the one who deals with tech at work, and I'm the one who knows how to get devices to work better. But she's the one with the iPod Touch, the Nook, and the feature-phone with the slide out qwerty keyboard. She has the newer laptop, too, by the way, and she's the one who regularly uses a GPS device.
She has those devices not because they integrate with her work technology but because they make her life easier. I don't have them because I don't have the same patterns as hers, so they're not as useful to me.