I was thinking the fireplace kind, readers, because I'll never read them on this:
"The heart of a reader; The Kindle 2's success may lead to growth for E Ink, but the Cambridge company must contend with rivals nipping at its heels" by Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | April 24, 2009
CAMBRIDGE - Russ Wilcox can sound messianic when talking about his company's electronic paper display technology as an antidote to the culture of texting, Twitter, and short attention spans.
"We want to keep the idea of deep thinking alive," insisted Wilcox, 41, chief executive at E Ink Corp. "We're trying to save the novel. We're trying to save publishing. We're trying to save civilization."
But we are not feeling full of ourselves in the least (although I agree about Twitter; now it's got the sportos on it, too).
The company has been riding high since February, when Amazon.com released the Kindle 2 digital book reader, which features E Ink's high-resolution displays, to much critical acclaim. Amazon is projected to sell more than 1 million readers in 2009, double the estimated 500,000 original Kindle devices it sold last year, according to Citigroup Investment Research.
That would position the Kindle 2 - and, with it, E Ink - as leaders in a hot emerging market that may transform how people read novels, textbooks, and even newspapers. (The Globe is among the publications that have versions formatted for the Kindle 2.)
I won't be reading you on the Kindle, crappers!
Analysts are monitoring the demand for signs that e-book readers are approaching a "tipping point," similar to the ones that earlier propelled e-mail devices like the BlackBerry and music devices like the iPod into the mass market. "Amazon sold more units of the Kindle than were sold by the iPod in its first year," said Mark H. Mahaney, an Internet analyst at Citigroup's research unit.
E Ink, started in 1997 by Wilcox and four co-founders, has raised more than $150 million in venture capital and undergone several changes in its business plan. But with the success of the Kindle 2, the outlook for its low-power, high-contrast screens, and for the e-reading phenomenon, could put it in a growth mode that's unusual for any business in an economic downturn....
Related: Where Your Pension Went
The company now employs about 130 people. That includes 120 at its headquarters near Fresh Pond, where they make the electronic ink, tiny capsules of positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles. Most of the rest work at a recently opened plant in South Hadley that handles coating and film production.
Yup, THOUSANDS of JOBS LOST and the paper is touting firms that employ a hundred again -- with a handful out in my neck of the woods!
E Ink also contracts out some work for the Asian Pacific market to a plant in Japan operated by its partner, Toppan Printing Co....
Oh, they OUTSOURCE, can you believe it? Pfffft!
--more--"
