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Old 07-14-2010, 08:47 AM   #10
fjtorres
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gastan View Post
I am wondering why, when there seem to be other display alternatives availabe, everything we see seems to come from one source ... PVI (or E Ink as they now call themselves) This particular company (http://www.nemoptic.com/) has a 5" color display ready for production, too. Why aren't we seeing it in readers?
Because of a crucial distinction:
Just because something is technically possible, that is, the technology to produce a working product exists, does not mean it can lead to a viable commercial product; one that can be safely, reliably, and consistently manufactured and sold at a competitive price.

Examples abound; any time you see a cool product that appears absurdly priced (say the Brother ebook reader) you'll likely find a tech that is solid on the physics side but uncompetitive on economics. I'll offer up just one:

SED HDTV displays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface...mitter_display

SED panels are really cool in concept; they are, in effect, flat CRTs. They have all of CRT's strengths and few of their weaknesses. They produce beautiful pictures. Canon and Toshiba, among others, developed a line of displays all the way up to announcing commercial delivery. Which got delayed and delayed and eventually cancelled. Why? Because while the SED panels were in gestation, LCD panels were shipping, and evolving, and ramping up economies of scale. One generation of LCDs paid for the next generation of better and *cheaper* products. Every time Canon and Toshiba hit a price point for their introductory price LCD (and plasma, to a lesser extent) would move the market to a lower price point. Eventually, Toshiba threw up their hands and moved on.

Economics matter. Economies of scale matter. Elsewhere I've annoyed some folks by pointig this out but the reality is that emerging industries like ebooks are *defined* and shaped by the first-movers and the early arrivers and by high-volume markets.

PVI got to market first; they set the rules, the expectations, the baselines (in performance and in economics) that would-be competitors need to match. They aren't guaranteed domination (or even survival) but if they keep on playing in the Red Queen's Race of tech product manufacture (you have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are), they just might be able to under-price or out-perform (or both) any potential rivals.

Right now, check the comments in the SiPix thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ewpost&t=90705

I haven't seen a SiPix panel yet but it seems their product was intended to compete with *last year's* PVI products. Against this year's product, the economics and the performance may or not be there to yield a viable product. But to compete against an established product or tech you *have* to be either significantly better at a comparable price or significantly cheaper for comparable performance. Comparable performance at comparable price, on the other hand, only works if you are plug-compatible. (Let's not forget the matter of driver chips and support chips; single chip ebook readers are coming because the chip functions needed to build a PVI-based reader are a known quantity, market demand and pricing are known, and integrating them into a single chip design has an eager market waiting.)

We need look no further than Skiff (gone) and Que (on life support) for eReader tech that is technically viable but economically DOA, as of today. Between iPad and Nook's price cut, the benchmark price both were aiming for has (apparently) become uncompetitive. Their market, if it ever existed, evaporated.

The same may happen to Nemoptics.
Or it may not.
But just because a *technology* is deemed "production-ready" by its backers doesn't mean *products* based on it are *market-ready*.

We really don't know what changed to make Nooks at US$149 possible. Maybe PVI has gotten their manufacturing costs down to where they can give B&N (and Amazon, maybe Sony) enough of a volume discount to permit a decent profit at that price point (bad for PVI competitors) or maybe B&N (and Amazon) gets enough ebook revenue to afford lower margins on the hardware (bad for *their* competitors but not necessarily so for PVI competitors).

In product engineering, designers are usually aiming at moving targets. And unless they can correctly guess where the market will be when the product hits market, they can easily find themselves with an uncompetitive product on the hands. (Samsung's reader doesn't seem to be coming to the US after all.)

Does Nemoptics have a viable technology? Looks like it.
Can somebody build a competitive ebook reader that can survive in the market?
That, remains to be seen.

Life in the tech business is anything but easy. For every jackpot winner there are dozens of almost-winners.

Last edited by fjtorres; 07-14-2010 at 08:50 AM.
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