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Samsung Want To Sell Liquavista To Amazon
Nate the greatest writes "Bloomberg is reporting early this morning that Liquavista, Samsung's cutting edge electrowetting screen tech research firm, is up for sale. Details are still thin but Bloomberg's unnamed source indicates Amazon is looking to buy Liquavista for somewhere under $100 million. This rumor confirms earlier reports that Amazon had launched a new holding company in the Netherlands and was going to use it to buy Liquavista. There have also been rumors circulating screen tech conferences for the past 5 or 6 months that Samsung was interested in selling the company. No one in the industry really understands why Samsung would want to do that, but I think the latest demo video from Liquavista explains it. This screen tech simply isn't as good as current LCD or OLED screens, and Samsung might be looking to cut their losses."
Seriously.
BlameBillCosby.com
Considering that so much of Amazon's success depends on a stable American middle class, it seems shortsighted to dodge US taxes by setting up a Dutch company. (The Netherlands is the same place that Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, moved his assets to in a huff).
Samsung, one of the (if not THE) leaders in display manufacturing technology, could not find a profitable way to make these things. And now Amazon - an internet ecommerce website that has zero manufacturing experience or capacity - wants to see if it can do any better?
One of the big issues with LCD displays is that they block most of the light going through them; so they are inherently inefficient. The first polarizer blocks 50% right of the bat, and by the time you are done, a color LCD screen showing its brightest white is still blocking probably 85% of the light from the backlight. Electrowetting displays promise to let some 80% of the light through for b/w, and quite a bit more than LCDs for color. For example, 3D shutter glasses currently use LCD displays and they block 60% of the light, electrowetting displays would be far better.
You know, if they existed.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I think what's going on here is a need for quick cash. It doesn't make sense to me otherwise.
The display looks very good. I don't think amazon is the only market. I'll easily take a slightly poorer display to fantastic battery life. It seems to me it would knock eink out of the market. I also don't see why amazon would invest in something like this. Much easier to sign an exclusive ten year deal and cheaper. I don't see them having the resources and talent to continuously perfect the display tech. It would be a bad investment that would probably kill the tech. Only thing I can imagine is they could use the tech as leverage for smart phone and tablet makers to use their store.
All the other hulking giants, (Microsoft, Amazon, Sony, Google) want that kind of reach. Even wannabe failing giants (Barns and Nobel) thought that hardware would be their salvation.
Hardware domination is, for want of a better word, hard. Even companies with good track records with hardware products like Nokia and Sony have failed. IBM has gotten out of the hardware business to a large extent, except for mainframes and supercomputing. HP is toast. Badly burnt toast. The MS Surface does not seem to have been that well received.
An Amazon purchase of Liquivista will not go well if history is any indication. But the smell of those big Apple style profits is irresistible for big corporations that want to get bigger. Greed is often the precursor to stupidity.
Why is Snark Required?
"Apple is a hardware company"
No, Apple is a DESIGN company. The hardware used in their products is made by others.
This display is better than LCD displays for e-readers. It is low-power and works well in sunlight like e-ink, but allows you to have color and video. Samsung probably doesn't want to make e-readers. But, Amazon might be interested in making e-readers with color displays that can do video. So, I think they want to buy it to give their e-readers a competitive advantage over other people's.