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Good article in yesterday’s Gigaom about the failure of Plastic Logic.  So typical of start-ups, they had a great technology but were never able to execute.  I remember being blown away by a demo of the product when it was first shown to the public.  Putting a display on plastic made it pretty well indestructible. Here are a few snippets:

On the surface, Plastic Logic had it all. When the British company first emerged 12 years ago, it looked as if it could become a technology giant: after all, it was spun out of one of the world’s great universities, staffed by amazing engineers, and owned a killer product — electronic displays that could be printed on plastic as thin as a credit card.

Probably Plastic Logic’s biggest — and most obvious — mistake was in its inability to execute fast enough. The technology was there, sure, but the company struggled to turn it into any sort of viable product in time. It opened its first factory fabrication plant in 2003, but still had no product by the time Amazon’s Kindle first emerged at the end of 2007.

All that time that the company had spent building a product, and yet it had ignored what turned out to be its biggest threat: a screen that was not necessarily a better e-reader, but that sidestepped the entire proposition by being a vastly more powerful device.

 …

These are all lessons that the company has learned the hardest way. But it’s worth remembering, whoever you are: no matter how great your technology — and make no bones about it, Plastic Logic does have a remarkable breakthrough technology there — it has to be available at the right time and at the right price.

Much more in the article.


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