Plastic Logic unveils executive e-book reader

Nice but *very* expensive

Oh dear, another UK company pitches a limited function product at *much* higher cost than its basic functionality permits because of the super duper tech involved.

Yes Plastic Logic has sunk a lot of cash in getting its tech working and wants a ROI ASAP.

But *you* are *not* Apple. You have virtually *no* public profile, certainly not as a supplier of cool, must-have gadets at silly prices. This level of pricing Vs functionality is *not* justifiiable.

Especially as IIRC the *whole* point of this technology is to radically *lower* the manufacturing cost of new hardware (not quite disposable but a hell of a lot cheaper)

Unless the price/performance ratio improves *fairly* quickly this will join the list of clever, but over priced UK sourced kit (BBC Micro, ARM PC) which was neat in it's day but failed to recognise the development curve that such products need to start working down if they don't want to be also rans, that charged a price premium *long* after more pedestrian software caught up (and then bypassed) them.

The price of this Vs the Skiff enewspaper reader will be *very* interesting to watch. Note that both seem to be e-ink variants, the Special Sauce (c Lewis Page) of the Skiff is the substrate, *not* the basic eink materials.

Thumbs up to Plastic Logic for getting a product out the door. Thumbs down for its poor price-performance

Hope nobody beats me to it...

They called it the what?

As a guide... wait what?

Which guide? What's the price indicator based on, competing products? Or "unofficial" statements by Plastic Logic?

@Brian 6

"Well its not like there's any point in them selling it at a loss. "

This product is a portal device to a service, Like a mobile phone or a games console. So actually there is quite a lot of point to selling it ata loss (as long as its the newspaper publisher that's doing the selling)

And if its as successful as the BBC Micro then they will be quids in :)

See my previous post about being left behind by the market. The UK seems to have a history of successful-for-a-while companies that cease to exist (seen anything of Acorn lately?). It would be nice if PL was not one of them.

It seems that it takes management nerve and initiative (you might call it "vision") that British managers, or their VC backers, lack.

My bad

I confused this product with the subscription enewspaper reader that spliff are supplying to Hearst, as also reported in El Reg.

As this does not appear to be being supplied as an access device it stands and falls on its own merits. I'd still say its *very* expensive. IIRC Kindle was sold as a subscriber portal device and was substantally cheaper. It has also been hacked to allow use as a more general purpose reader.

With my evil marketing hat on I would also note that when a company that is supplying a *manufacturing* technology to enable other companies to manufacture their products starts manufacturing its own versionn tends to get viewed as a threat. At the *very* least setting up a tradename to distance their products from manufacturing operation. ARM do not manufacture set top boxes, PDAs, printers or other products for a reason. Consider the suspicion with which Sony and Nintendo view microsoft in the games market.

I wish Plastic Logic every success with their venture. The possibilites for their technology are huge.

I do

@Number6

Not quite. The naming you gave is backwards, *from* Acorn to Advanced.

Acorn itself ended by being taken over by that powerhouse of Italian IT, Olivetti.

Mine's the one witht he back issue of PCW in the pockets.