Ann Arbor News 9/20/98, slightly off topic, but in the ballpark
FLAT-PANEL SCREENS OFF RADAR
Area maker goes bust
By Rick Laglund
DETROIT Five years ago, the Clinton and Engler(governor of Michigan) administrations placed a $68 million bet that a small Michigan company could begin wresting the flat-panes video display industry away form the Asians.
Today the bet has gone bust. OIS Optical Imaging Systems Inc., one of just two domestic producers of advanced flat-panel video displays, is ceasing operations.
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In addition, a state-funded University of Michigan research center designed to help OIS become a major producer of these high-tech screens, may be merged with another U-M micro-electronics research center because of OIS's failure.
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"I think the OIS situation is not a positive in our efforts to bring flat-panes-display companies to Michigan," said Jim Tobin, a spokesman for the Michigan Jobs Commission.
Guardian has invested $135 million in OIS, but decided this week to end financial support because of OIS's continuing losses.
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The company's assets will be liquidated.
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Flat-pane displays are used in everything from laptop computers to the instrument panels of fighter jets. Analysts expect the world market for these thin screens to grow to about $25 billion by 2004, up from about $5 billion in the early 1990s.
skip In 1993, the Clinton administration tried to kick start the U.S. flat-panel industry by giving OIS $48 million to build the nation's first major flat-panel manufacturing plant. The company also got various U.S. military contracts.
OIS built "active matrix liquid crystal display" panels, the kind that are popular in laptop computers and in sophisticated aircraft instrumentation.
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And the U-M center's research may benefit automakers, who are exploring the use of flat-panel displays in instrument panels.
ADOT need any equipment?, might be able to pick some up cheap?
Maybe the Clinton and Engler administrations have millions more to give away?
Go Wolverines |
