E-paper finally arriving with new Sony ‘reader’?

The dead-tree industry, aka publishing, has been wringing its hands for years now as the demand for its products – books, newspapers and the like – is eroded by electronic media. Sure, the industry has tried to cope with technology’s assault on its business, but it has yet to comfortably accommodate it. That accommodation could be coming, though, in the form of electronic paper.
E-paper is thin and flexible like pulp paper and can display typography that’s as good as print, but its contents can be modified on the fly like a computer display. Strategies for Management, a consulting firm in Harrisville run by Joe Webb, released a study this month about the opportunities the technology offers publishing, communications and the graphics arts.
Webb is a 28-year veteran of the publishing business. One of his latest ventures is PrintForecast.com, an online source for global print business planning and forecasting. Following release of the e-paper report, the Providence Business News spoke to Webb about the potential of that technology.

PBN: Can e-paper displace paper in the printing industry?
WEBB: It can displace a lot of printing. On one hand, it’s a threat to the printing industry. On the other hand, it increases the opportunities for printers to get involved in content management and content deployment. It’s an opportunity for the printing industry to reposition itself to take advantage of those things.

PBN: Is there a relationship between the predictions about electronic paper and those of the paperless office?
WEBB: None.

PBN: So this won’t become part of the paperless office revolution that never took place?

WEBB: Pieces of it took place. E-mail doesn’t have to be printed, except in certain circumstances. Loads of information is created with e-mail and that stays electronic. Reports are sent by PDF and those often remain electronic. But in terms of legal stuff and business transactions – invoices and stuff like that – there’s still a huge amount of print involved in those kinds of things. In business correspondence, a lot of paper has been reduced, but for business documentation, very little has been reduced.

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PBN: Hasn’t the primary application for e-paper so far been in advertising signage?

WEBB: That’s a small application. E-paper really doesn’t exist yet. We’re going to get our first feel for it when the Sony e-book reader starts to be sold in the next couple of months. It uses e-paper technology from a company in Cambridge, Mass., called E Ink; it has a very thin screen that’s superior to any purported e-book reader that’s ever been available. E Ink’s business isn’t very large, but the Sony e-book reader has much greater potential than some of the other things that it’s been involved in.

PBN: E-book readers have been introduced before and failed to gain any traction in the market. Why will Sony’s experience be any different?

WEBB: There have never been e-book readers that have offered some kind of wireless access to media before. That will be a big selling point.
Portable computers will also begin to use e-paper as their screens and get much lighter. Then the idea that you can get content – books, newspapers, anything – any place, any time that you want is quite attractive.
E-paper is going to find its way into lots of devices from whatever the cell phone becomes, whatever the PDA becomes, to new generations of notebook computers. It will create devices that are incredibly light, easy to carry – because e-paper technology allows for foldable screens – and have connectivity to wireless networks.
E-paper doesn’t stand alone as a technology. There are so many other complementary trends that are occurring around it that it has a far better chance of success now than it had before.
The technology continues to improve dramatically. Last year, for example, Fujitsu developed a color product that doesn’t need to be refreshed with a constant electrical charge. They will start marketing that sometime next year.

PBN: If you have an e-book, you’re going to want something to read in it. What’s the attitude of the content providers to these devices?

WEBB: Publishers don’t mind because they’re already preparing things for on-demand printing. Some of the retail outlets, though, are not interested right now. Borders is the only one interested. Amazon is not selling [the Sony reader]. And Barnes & Noble felt it was so burned by e-books before that it’s not interested.
Sony is going to make a big run at it this time, but even if the Sony product doesn’t work in the marketplace, e-paper is such a diverse business and has so many potential applications that the technology isn’t in any danger of disappearing.
It’s a very vibrant business. It took us six months to do our study and the market was changing dramatically as we were studying it. There were more new entrants, more new technologies and more improvements to already announced technologies.

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