Plastic Logic has been in the headlines a lot lately, mostly about the perpetually delayed and now canceled Plastic Logic Que E-Reader. Plastic Logic is known as a low cost computer chip maker and has about 200 million dollars kick-in by Intel and a few other venture capital firms.
Plastic Logic is a company in peril, and they are entering late-stage negotiations on selling a majority stake of its company to Russian State owned company Rusnano, the Financial Times reports. Rusnano primarily deals with nanotechnology and if the deal goes through, all Plastic Logic chips would be manufactured in Russia.
Plastic Logic needs an investor big time. Without one, their lifeline of selling chips on the market is threatened. Since their company risked much in the development of the Que E-Reader that did not materialize, the company is in a real bind. With the outsourcing of chip technology from Dresden and Cambridge United Kingdom to the cheaper option of Russia, this may be the deal that helps Plastic Logic sustain itself.
Before the serious Russian talks took off, Plastic Logic was in contact with China, but the talks had reached an impasse.
Plastic Logic is a home grown company and has major offices and Research and Development centers in Cambridge and Dresden, and also has offices in Germany and California. People are lamenting the fact that their local company is soon to be owned by State Russia. In other respects it shows a progression in maturity of Plastic Logic to establish a cheaper manufacture base, and gives Russia some much added clout on the world stage of technology innovators.
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Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
