As far as I am aware Plastic Logic was never a product company, they were a technology company.
They had to produce the Que because no partners believed the technology worked at scale - they wanted to see an actual product created. This in itself was a huge culture shock for a technology company to have to suddenly sweat product details.
And so far the technology hasn't worked in a scalable manner, but this is a matter of time and capital.
eReaders were an interesting choice, when Plastic Logic decided on this the iPad was non-existent and the only eReaders were crappy Sony ones, by the time they managed to launch it the market was far more mature and expectations of what a product had to do to be good had sky rocketed.
You're probably wondering what other products their plastic technology can be used in, it is very diverse in reality - eventually plastic logic will have electronic paper for the same price as regular paper. Imagine if medicine labels updated on the fly with reminders, recommendations and guidelines. Posters on the wall changed over the air rather than needing to be reprinted, etc etc. Futuristic stuff in theory.
It is very easy to criticise a a company for raising so much capital and never launching anything - but what they are doing is ridiculously futuristic - literal hard technology that'll impact every persons life in the long run.
I wonder if the early investors like Hermann Hauser and Amadeus have made any money from this yet.
> As far as I am aware Plastic Logic was never a product company, they were a technology company.
As I understand it, Plastic Logic started as a technology company, but as their investors poured more and more cash into the business were encouraged to become more of a product company. The desire to move up the value chain seems to be a reasonable ask, but it also appears that it meant that Plastic Logic never built a foundation to their business.
I'm awed by the technology, too. But I highly doubt any of the investors will make their money back.
You could argue that it was a technology company that had to become a product company and got very distracted in the process. From the evidence that we have so far OEMs were probably right to hold off to ensure that electronics could be produced at scale. This seems to have been a key issue for them in launching the Que where the company had to focus on manufacturing but also running a number of product driven startups as per my comment.
I would never criticise a company for raising too much money though I would be inclined to query the wisdom of an early stage investor who thought that they would get a return.
Rusnano - is state owned Russian corporation headed by a close friend of Putin and an oligarch Anatoly Chubais. This is basically a shell company created to steal taxpayers money. Everyone knows it and there is lots of jokes about these "nano technologies".
So be sure that out of 1 billion ,big chunk of it was in kickbacks to company's execs and middle managers.
Sorry if I ask a stupid question -- what the heck are plastic electronics? The article doesn't do much to explain what that means... Some specifics and examples would help a lot. Also, you mention iPad as a competitor, but it's not clear how and why.
They were making an iPad like product and have announced it way before the iPad was announced. But now that looks sort of sunk. As a consumer product it doesn't look like they'll be able to pull it off. But their technology seems fantastic and can make them a successful company lower on the supply chain.
Essentially this is silicon chips without the silicon. Electronic circuits printed onto cheaper plastic substrates which offer promise of cheaper electronics with interesting properties such as flexibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_electronics
If I am not mistaken, Plastic Logic is licensing their technology for the Barnes and Nobles Nook, right? If thats the case, then having an end product such as 'Que' doesn't seem as profitable as making money on just licensing the IP.
it's companies like this that make it that much harder for the rest of us to raise capital. Not that I know a lot of VCs, but the ones I do know all require a working business model before investing. How were they planning on making money on this?
Their business model is straight forward, if they can pull their technology off they have just created an entire industry that could spawn a whole new generation of electronics companies.
The difficulty is making the technology work, and you're kidding yourself if you think investors in this kind of company look at deals any smaller than the kinds of Plastic Logic bets.
They had to produce the Que because no partners believed the technology worked at scale - they wanted to see an actual product created. This in itself was a huge culture shock for a technology company to have to suddenly sweat product details.
And so far the technology hasn't worked in a scalable manner, but this is a matter of time and capital.
eReaders were an interesting choice, when Plastic Logic decided on this the iPad was non-existent and the only eReaders were crappy Sony ones, by the time they managed to launch it the market was far more mature and expectations of what a product had to do to be good had sky rocketed.
You're probably wondering what other products their plastic technology can be used in, it is very diverse in reality - eventually plastic logic will have electronic paper for the same price as regular paper. Imagine if medicine labels updated on the fly with reminders, recommendations and guidelines. Posters on the wall changed over the air rather than needing to be reprinted, etc etc. Futuristic stuff in theory.
It is very easy to criticise a a company for raising so much capital and never launching anything - but what they are doing is ridiculously futuristic - literal hard technology that'll impact every persons life in the long run.
I wonder if the early investors like Hermann Hauser and Amadeus have made any money from this yet.