And a color screen might in fact allow for true white backgrounds. That could speed up acceptance of ebooks.

>>>It never ceases to amaze (and indeed grieve) me how my fellow leftists seem to think that the working of markets is a myth instead of a fact.

Oh! This is teleread, so I will only say, boy, would I like to comment on *that* assertion!

>>>If the demand for e-paper raises sharply, there will be friction, but in the end production of some kind of e-paper will go up.

Well that was exactly a point made in the original comment: that the current eInk tech could easily be made obsolete within a year or two by a new screen tech that none of us have heard of that is probably in some lab right now nearing production-run ability. If color eInk is perfected, would there still be a market for monochrome? Would it even be offered for sale at all? (Good luck replacing that broken/worn Kindle/ Reader/ Cybook, etc, screen!)

At this link:

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/12/03/ebooks-kindle-digital-tech-personaltech-cx_ag_1203ebooks_slide.html

There is a mention of a screen technology Qualcomm is developing that could trump eInk in many ways.

You do make a good point that the strong sales should encourage increased production. Furthermore, I don’t want to pretend I really know what PVI’s inside plans are — I’m just speculating based on their public announcements.

However, the history with PVI doesn’t indicate they can instantly turn up the volume on production. Their past history has shown it takes them a year or two to ramp up a million or so units of capacity. To get to a higher number, say 50 million would probably take them at least as long.

Furthermore, proof that they can sell out a million units is completely different than selling out 50 to 100 million units. I agree with you that their current numbers should easily justify a capacity expansion. The problem is how big the expansion will be. Even a two-fold increase still leaves them far below mass market levels.

I suspect that if they had secured funding for a 10x or even 100x increase in capacity they would trumpet it from the rooftops — similar to their original announcements. We could then start timing product availability from that press release.

As I said originally, I own an e-Ink based unit (the Cybook) and I am a fan of the product. My post is not meant to bash e-books or e-Ink. My goal is to point out that the current products may still be at the experimental stage in terms of quantity available, and that the window is still open for the underlying technology to further evolve, and for potential competitors to emerge. Furthermore, given the limited supply I wouldn’t be surprised to see prices remain at early adopter levels for a bit longer.

Michael Harris

What made absolutely no sense is the claim that this so (no interest in spending millions) because of the a) likelihood of change in product line and b) limited market. But there was a time when that same sort of problems applied to pretty much every tech. After all, that 80 million a year smartphone market didn’t simply rise up over night. Cell phones used to be extremely expensive, bulky, were changing constantly from year to year…who would ever invest in that market???

The bottom line is that if these folks are really selling every e-ink display they can produce, the money to build/upgrade facilities will follow.