Things, with dollars! It's a story, in two parts: enjoy.

From March, here:

[M]anufacturers are being faced with two equally unattractive (read: expensive) options for building TV-sized OLED TVs, like the one Samsung showed off last year: either devise an entirely new manufacturing process, which would require the invention of new techniques and machines for fabrication, or pursue a different type of OLED panel. Both options would circumvent the current size restrictions, but both options are extremely expensive.

The investments necessary to manufacters a legitimately "next-gen," i.e. either reasonably priced or reasonably sized, OLED, are extremely high, and difficult to muster capital for in this economy. This alone could've explained Sony's delay, but then we have this, today, from the WSJ:

Sony will delay the launch of its next organic light emitting diode, or OLED, television because mass producing the new displays would exacerbate losses at its TV division, according to people familiar with the matter.

It's not just that developing the fabrication processes to build larger OLED TVs is too expensive—it's that so far, and probably for some time into the future, OLED TVs are and will be money-losing prestige products. And right now, Sony can't afford prestige products.

The WSJ points to Samsung and LG as the companies to fill the OLED void, but neither company has been overly enthusiastic about the technology, at least on a TV scale, for the last few months. Idealistic vision of the future, circa 2007? Deeeeee—layed. [WSJ]

Ars interviewed Barry Young, Managing Director of the OLED Association, and managed to get a pretty good read on where the OLED industry is, and more importantly, where it's headed. The nebulous long term projections about OLED dominance still stand, but the short term prospects are, in a word, shitty. Here's why:

Some major manufacturers have gotten to be pretty good at building the small OLED TVs we're used to seeing. Samsung is about to introduce a 14.1-inch pipsqueak to go against Sony's 11-inch wonder midget, and prices for these mini-sets should start dropping soon enough. Unfortunately, these small OLED screens are the largest functional television displays anyone is capable of mass-producing right now.

Sparing you the mind-numbing technical details (those here), manufacturers are being faced with two equally unattractive (read: expensive) options for building TV-sized OLED TVs, like the one Samsung showed off last year: either devise an entirely new manufacturing process, which would require the invention of new techniques and machines for fabrication, or pursue a different type of OLED panel. Both options would circumvent the current size restrictions, but both options are extremely expensive.

In the current climate, companies like Samsung can't be certain that such risky investments will pay off fast enough, and for the time being, investment capital is scarce. Answering a question about Samsung's plan for a 32" OLED set, Young could only say this: "How soon Samsung will do their next generation will be affected by the downturn." In other words, sorry 2009. And 2010. [Ars via OLED-Display]