Canon's SED Buy-Out: The Beginning Of The End?

SlashGear's article on SED, the display technology with the potential to oust both plasma and LCD from their top-spots, remains one of the most-read and commented on that the site has seen.  Overshadowing the format has been a 2005 lawsuit by Nano-Proprietary Inc. for patent infringement, based on the collaboration between Toshiba and Canon (Nano-Proprietary argued that they had only licenced the SED tech to Canon).

With a trial due to begin this March, Canon has decided to throw money at the problem and buy out Toshiba's shares in SED, Inc; Kazunori Fukuma, hired by Toshiba as president of the display subsiduary, will resign and be re-claimed by Canon, while Toshiba engineers and the resources necessary for SED development will be loaned.

Exact financial details of the buy-out are undisclosed, and analysts are already predicting mediocre sales of the technology thanks to the rapidly decreasing price of its competitors; it's entirely possible that SED will remain a low-scale and high-end product rather than attempt to compete on the cut-throat consumer shop-floor.  Already reconsidering plans to construct a $1.49 billion SED factory, Canon has also delayed production on any scale until fourth-quarter 2007, giving the company time to streamline and economise the process.

Might this be the coup de grace for SED?  Much as the enthusiasts would hate to see the technology evaporate out of the market, unless enough of them step forward and eschew both LCD and plasma there's a rapidly dwindling market share for SED to dominate, higher-quality or not.  Perhaps we'll just have to wait and see how good eventual production sets prove to be – or, indeed, whether they hit the market at all.

Canon to Buyout Toshiba's SED Contract [via DailyTech]