Elo is leading the way by continually looking for new application areas for its products. In this special focus IT Reseller looks at the touchscreen market from Elo's perspective, and discovers that the rise of the technology is unabated.

A RAPIDLY EXPANDING MARKETPLACE

Touchscreens - put most simply, a range of technologies which allow computer users to touch the area of the screen they want to activate - were conceived in the early 70's, gathered momentum in the 80's, and are approaching maturity in the 1990's. Like a lot of innovative technology, it has been around a relatively long time, so why is the touchscreen making such leaps and bounds now?

Elo TouchSystems, a touchscreen specialist in the fields of point-of-information, P0S, industrial control and gaming markets, says that part of the answer lies in the dramatic drop in PC prices, which has enabled many more businesses to justify an investment in computers.

This has led to the PC making forays into areas with no tradition of computer use, where the man-machine interface must be friendly to people with limited computer experience. To answer this call for increased ease of use, increasingly developers, systems integrators and resellers are investing in touchscreen technology.

Touchscreen prices have dropped dramatically as application and production volumes have increased. This trend has boosted sales in traditional touchscreen niches, such as factory-floor control, while driving sales in new touchscreen arenas, such as the medical, financial, and restaurant industries.

The drop in price for a touchscreen solution has been significant: In the early 1980s, a complete touch system, including a controller card, a software driver program and the touchscreen itself, totaled well over $1000. (US) Today, that price tag has been cut by more than half and is still dropping steadily.

In addition, while touchscreen suppliers have reduced their prices, they have boosted their products' performance substantially. Each new generation of touchscreen has offered customers faster touch response times, superior reliability and increased durability. Touchscreen suppliers now also offer broader compatibility with operating systems, easier installation and better size selection to fit various types of monitors.

Over twenty-five years after its foundation, Elo TouchSystems continues to lay claim to leadership of the touchscreen marketplace, providing leading-edge touchscreen solutions to customers in a broad cross-section of industries. The company now employs more than 480 people at manufacturing facilities in the United States and Freising, Germany, plus many regional sales offices around the world. To date, Elo TouchSystems has installed more than 550,000 touchscreen systems throughout the world. ELO claims that this is more than any other supplier.

Since being purchased by Raychem Corporation in 1987, Elo TouchSystems has further expanded its research and development capabilities. With Raychem  a leading materials science company, operating as its

parent, Elo TouchSystems has considerable technical expertise and resources at its disposal.

Elo TouchSystems now offers what it says is the broadest touchscreen product line available anywhere, including two industry-leading touchscreen technologies: IntelliTouch systems (based on surface wave technology) and AccuTouch systems (based on resistive technology).