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Chicken Little Syndrome seems to be running rampant through this discussion... We're in a crappy economy, and the technology of e-ink is more mature now so more potential sales have been made, and yes, there is similar competition from multi-use devices like tablets on the rise. You notice the entire blurb is predicated on one wag making a statement based on one yearly cycle. I bet they sold less Fords from 1938 to 1945 or so, but there seems to be no shortage of them on freeways today... I think this is mostly shortsighted interpretation of a market. A decline may indicate that the market is temporarily saturated as the devices are multi-year lifetime based, or it may have been the year of the tablet between Apple Mini 2's with higher res screens and Nexus tablets with the same advantages. I think E-ink will stumble along a good while because there is a large enough market for a better device in terms of glare, outdoor visibility, etc.
If you really want to get nervous about e-ink be worried about what Amazon may be up to with their new display technology company vs. e-ink... If they can produce a display that has the lower glare and outdoor visibility of e-ink and is capable of higher refresh rates in color on demand while still keeping the lower power requirements of e-ink when refreshes are kept low then they are the new thing to watch. Amazon won't care as much about cost either if they can get you hooked to buy content from them, that's the real money end of the business.
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