Is Amazon's new e-book the gadget that will revolutionize reading, finally doing for the publishing industry what the iPod did for the music industry?
It's far too soon to tell, but even if it takes years before the fledgling e-book industry begins to supplant the printed page, the Kindle signals that E Ink Corp. has come into its own. The Cambridge company provides its electronic paper technology to the Amazon Kindle, as well as the Sony Reader and a half-dozen other electronic books - devices that some analysts say could take off as they get cheaper and a critical mass of readers are persuaded by their digital charms.
"It's like cellphone technology was 20 years ago," said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research. "They used to be as big as a purse back in the day - as soon as you got consumers wanting those devices then there was enough money in the market to make them more usable and more attractive. That's essentially what needs to happen to E Ink . . . they need to get to manufacturing scale."
E Ink, founded a decade ago, makes "electronic paper" - black-and-white screens that reflect light from above and look a lot like paper, in contrast to the backlit screens of laptops and cellphones that eat up battery life and cause eyestrain.
The company is on the right path to creating demand and manufacturing scale to eventually see the prices for the technology drop, McQuivey said. Today, the company powers the screen in a Motorola cellphone, the pages for the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, and a flexible display with Polymer Vision, among others.
McQuivey projects that 50,000 of the $400 Amazon Kindles could be sold in the first year on the market and estimates that the other high-profile e-book, the $300 Sony Reader, can't have sold more than "a few tens of thousands" since its launch last year. While neither is a mass-market product yet, he said, both are strategically important because as the price of the screen technology drops both companies will have made strategic inroads into the marketplace.
While E Ink's technology is now being widely deployed as the paper in e-books, the company's low-power displays could eventually displace other screens in the home, too, as they incorporate color and become thin and flexible.
"It is starting to prove out the viability of electronic books," said David Jackson, director of marketing for E Ink. "I think it really continues to show we're the dominant player in the electronic paper market."
Still, electronic paper may have a long way to go. It's up against books, a portable "technology" with an easy-to-read "screen" and no power-supply concerns.
"I'm not a fan of this thing. It's like wood paneling on the sides of a station wagon," said Marlon Kuzmick of Cambridge, who said the screen made the device slightly more "tolerable" when he tried out a demo model while he was shopping at Harvard Book Store, with a real book tucked under his arm.
Amazon packed the clunky-looking Kindle with features to appeal to gadgeteers - such as wireless connectivity through a cellphone network, instant downloads of newspapers, blogs, and books, a built-in dictionary, and a long battery life.
Indeed, in a December report, ABI Research called the Kindle a "bellwether" for a new generation of mobile Internet devices that create new categories of gadgets. The firm said connected devices that allow people to access information or browse the Web will be used by 90 million people worldwide by 2012.
But the e-book itself will face numerous challenges.
While there is crossover between book readers and early adopters, the experience of using technology and reading a book may be starkly different.
The publishing model may resemble the music industry's, but even though people listen to song after song in a single sitting, most do not need to flip between dozens of novels at once. The tactile experience of flipping through pages, measuring progress through a text by touch, is an integral part of reading for many people.
And most people don't worry about splashing a drink on a book, dropping one, or even losing track of one - experiences that may not translate as well to the digital version.
The demo model provided to the Globe stopped working yesterday, not responding no matter how many times the reporter depressed the reset button with a paper clip -a problem never encountered with an actual book.
"I like books," said Dr. John Rice, a physician from Cambridge when handed a Kindle. "They're like a perfect invention - like a paper clip. Just because you can do something new doesn't mean it should be done."
Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.
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