Quote:
Originally Posted by bigtext
And if the company that manufactured eink business depends on Amazon's and B&Ns marketing muscle to have enough demand to meet cost then that company is in trouble because Amazon's and B&N profits are no longer tied to their success.
|
E-ink, the company is *not* solely dependent on eink panel sales.
They have other revenue streams, some from LCD panels.
e-ink panels themselves are not dependent solely on reader sales, much less just Amazon and B&N (there are dozens of companies selling the things, most in markets that haven't started down the road to mainstreaming). Eink tech is going into signage uses and has been used for watches and other gadgets.
Also, E-ink isn't the only company selling electrophoretic displays, SiPix and several others are playing at the margins.
Don't expect Eink readers to collapse; the category is to big to just vanish, no matter what multi-function fans might want to believe. The only thing that is in play is that nobody knows what the natural market for the devices is and what its long term economics really are like.
We've been this way before with other nascent technology products; calculators, gaming consoles, PCs, media players, and even smartphones. Some turned out to be big, others small.
One thing *all* have in common, though: all had at least one big shakeout and not all the early players survived it.