This tech, and that business plan, is nothing new. Plastic Logic aimed squarely at the professional market with a flexible e-ink reader that debuted at CES 2009. [0]
It hasn't worked out so well for them. I visited their booth in 2009, and they showed a large flexible screen housed in a rigid case. It was to be the advent of flexible e-ink, and the beginning of a new era. Eventually, their announced content partners fell through, and despite an initial splash it never really materialized.
Plastic Logic did launch in the US, but shut down their US ops in 2012. [1] They are still a going concern, however, and still focusing on the business market.
Yes, thanks, I know. I knew (had met with) Plastic Logic in the UK several years before I went to the Que launch at CES in 2010. It came out of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge.
The Sony screen is made by LG. It's a much bigger operation.
Very good - then don't you also share my skepticism about this as a viable product?
The first meetings I had about Que was actually with Hearst, if I recall. The Plastic Logic play was backed by content providers seeking a new channel, including Barnes & Noble. The Sony play is backed by a hardware provider seeking a new channel. So producers have this need, but what about customers?
I find myself having the same three doubts I had back in the day:
1) Nobody cares if a screen is flexible for these particular product applications (especially for the Que, which mounted flexible display tech in a rigid form).
2) It's a solution in search of a problem. Who is clamoring for this device at market scale? Even for a specific vertical?
3) Haven't we learned that these devices need the support of a broader ecosystem? That developers need to find opportunity in a platform for it to succeed, and that requires a certain critical mass? How is that going to happen serving a niche vertical market?
The Que was aiming at a much wider market, and when the iPad was announced, they folded.
Sony is aiming at a much smaller professional market, and it has a chance where people don't use Latin alphabets, including Japan. I don't know enough about the US legal scene to know whether it will find a market there, but Worldox thinks it's worth a go....
