Startup company Plastic Logic on Monday demonstrated an e-book reader that it hopes will give business users the same document-reading convenience that the Amazon Kindle gave to consumers.

Plastic Logic's prototype e-book reader is thinner than Amazon's Kindle.
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"I've been reading, writing, and talking about the paperless office for 20 years," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMOFall 08 conference, introducing Plastic Logic. "You know the joke -- the paperless office will happen when the paperless bathroom does."

Plastic Logic is looking to bring the paperless office closer -- or, at least, reduce the amount of paper that that business users have to carry around with them -- with the introduction of its e-book reader.

The as-yet-unnamed device is due to be announced early next year, but attendees at the DEMOFall 08 conference got a sneak peak. The device is the size and thickness of a pad of 8.5"x11" paper, and is designed for reading corporate reports, marketing literature, public relations files, and all variety of other business documents, as well as books and magazines. Professionals read more business content than recreational content, and the Plastic Logic reader is designed to accommodate that, said Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta.

Like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader, the Plastic Logic device uses electronic ink for a paper-like display. In the demonstration at the conference, the display showed good-quality grayscale graphics, and pages seemed to change a bit faster than on the Amazon Kindle.

The manufacturer keeps the device thin and light by embedding the logic in plastic, rather than silicon, and avoiding using glass in the display, which also makes the device tougher than a notebook computer. Plastic Logic plans to open a factory September 17 in Dresden, Germany to build the plastic electronics.

The device supports business document formats including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Adobe PDF, as well as periodicals and books. It has a gesture-based touch-screen user interface, and tools to allow users to organize and manage information. The device connects either wired or wirelessly.

Users can annotate documents by drawing on the touch-screen, or by writing short notes using a pop-up software keyboard.

The device is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2009, and pricing will be announced then.