Comment: Waiting for Plastic Logic's e-reader

It has been revealing details about its device and the technology behind it for several years now, and this week, has given it a name " the Que 'proReader'.

Earlier this month, it confirmed that the device will be firmly targeted at the business user " presumably to stress that it will not be competing against the likes of Amazon's Kindle, or Sony's e-book, which seem to have started in development much later, but are already out in the market.

Today, the Cambridge-England based company with manufacturing facilities in Dresden, Germany,also said it would show off the Que at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, when it will also offer insights into pricing , more technical details, and — finally — availability.

The product was originally slated for launch this year, but Plastic Logic said in March that it would not arrive until early next year.

The company again stressed the Que proReader will have the largest screen in the industry, an intuitive touch screen user interface, use E Ink's Vizplex technology and that it would provide access to a file cabinet's worth of documents, and also touted that the battery would last days, instead of hours.

We already know the e-book reader will have connectivity options, that is both Wi-Fi and a connection to AT&T's wireless network and is about the size of an 8.5-inch-by-11-inch pad of paper.

We also read that content partnerships have been agreed with Barnes & Noble, USA Today, the Financial Times, Zinio, LibreDigital, and Ingram Digital.

We knew for a long time the device is based on its ability to create a low-cost plastic active-matrix backplane and that its founders, who worked on the technology at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory ahead of the company's formation in 2000, have received a funding round in 2008 from investment firms such as Amadeus and companies such as Intel and BASF that took its total funding above $200 million.

The company has clearly coined the term 'ProReader' to emphasize that it is aiming at professionals, and noted it would support PDF, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, with promises of unspecified 'powerful tools for interactive with and managing the content.'

It all sounds like a logical way to differentiate the product in what is gradually becoming a competitive market, mostly populated by products from companies larger than Plastic Logic.

The big concern is the fledgling e-reader sector has already seen significant changes since Plastic Logic started touting its e-reader, when its only real competition were the original Amazon.com Kindle and the Sony Reader.

Now Amazon has come up with a much improved Kindle 2 and even better specified Kindle DX, we have the choice of multiple new Sony's, Best Buy has rolled out is iRex, and the there seems to be a contender from Barnes and Noble in the works.

With so much known, what we would now like is an actual date when we could go out and buy one of Plastic Logic's seemingly differentiated product.

Come on Richard Archuleta (CEO of Plastic Logic); show us: "More than an eReader, Que means business."