Less Space, More Monitors

E-businesses have been preoccupied about decorating the rooms of their virtual storefronts. But as LCD flat-panel technology becomes more affordable, the windows onto the Internet are also gaining the attention of solution providers and customers alike.

"As e-business gets more popular and companies start doing more purchasing and marketing over the Internet, more people are beginning to think about the monitor in terms of its impact on what users are looking at," says Gene Ornstead, director of product marketing at ViewSonic Corp., Walnut, Calif.

Improved color and clarity are obvious benefits of LCD flat-panel technology. Throw in an array of new features, such as landscape-to-portrait pivoting, touch panels and color-matching software, and it becomes crystal clear why these monitors are becoming the viewing tool of choice for online customers and e-business workers.

The streamlined design of LCD flat panels is another attractive feature. "Flat panels can fit into spaces where CRTs can't even be considered," says Lynn DeFrees, product manager for Compaq Computer Corp.'s Commercial Displays Business Unit, Houston.

Space savings was the primary factor in Egghead Software Inc.'s decision to buy flat panels for some of its users, says Kevin Brodie, senior account peripheral manager at the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company. "Desktop size has become a real issue for us," he says. "As we are growing as a company, and hiring more people, the constraint on cubicle space is getting higher, and having room on the physical desktop is important."

Flat-panel monitors also offer better picture quality and a sleeker look. "LCD simply produces a more realistic picture," says Lloyd Klark, senior marketing manager of display products at Sony Displays, San Jose.

Sony recently began shipping its Sony Multiscan N50 LCD display, which measures only half an inch at its edge and has a futuristic black casing.

Some monitor suppliers are also bundling additional software to let customers manage their display colors more closely. Samsung America Inc. has started shipping E-Color software with its flat-panel and high-end CRT monitors.

Compaq includes its Colorific software with some of its LCD monitors. "Customers need to be able to see color quality when they are creating online and viewing online materials," DeFrees says. "E-business has made it important to make sure the monitor delivers the truest color possible."

Many users also appreciate the less obvious advantages of flat-panel monitors, such as their ability to rotate from a landscape to a portrait orientation.

"The portrait display is the ideal orientation for viewing Web pages," says Chris Connery, product line manager for LCD monitors at NEC Technologies, Itasca, Ill. "Having the pivoting capability is becoming important to the e-commerce customer, in general. Initially, it was favored by Web designers to create Web pages that were more like pieces of paper. Now that Web designers have used the technology and started to design Web pages around a standard sheet of paper, users want to scroll less and have more information on the screen. It's becoming more important to everyone."

In addition to normal desktop usage, flat-panel monitors are being used in a variety of vertical market applications, such as kiosk and point-of-sale terminals, to decrease space usage and increase usability. These applications are much more likely to use touch-screen capabilities to allow users to input information and interact with the system. Although both resistive and capacitive touch-screen technologies are available, the former is the popular choice because it does not require electrical input from a pen device or finger in the way that capacitive technologies do. Four months ago, NEC introduced the MultiSync LCD 15T, which provides a resistive touch screen as an option.

There is also a strong move in the industry, both for LCD and CRT monitors, toward digital input, since signal quality is not degraded with digital inputs as it can be with analog inputs. Rather, the signal is enhanced, compared with analog inputs, which are the current standard.

"With digital technology, you don't have the degradation of color quality that you have in analog in many cases," says ViewSonic's Ornstead. "If anything goes wrong with a cable, connectors or board, the picture quality is compromised. Analog displays must also be perfectly tuned for accurate appearance. Digital [input] solves these problems."

ViewSonic recently introduced two flat panels,the 15-inch VP151 and the 18-inch VP181,both of which feature OptiSync. OptiSync puts digital and analog inputs into a single monitor to address user concerns about support of current and future standards.

Other important flat-panel features include viewing angle, both top to bottom and left to right. Many monitors now support 160-degree viewing in every direction, though NEC's new 18.1-inch NL128102AC28-04 display supports a 170-degree viewing angle.

LCD monitors are definitely pricier than CRTs: A 17-inch flat-panel display costs roughly $1,200, while a standard 17-inch monitor costs between $300 and $400.

When looking at total cost of ownership, however, the actual differential drops substantially. "If you put 100 monitors in a tight area, you are saving space, but often the cooling costs and power savings outweigh the expense," says Jeff Geis, national channel marketing manager at Samsung America.

Another potential savings area, he adds, is the easy replacement of the backlight if it burns out.

Solution providers can help prospective users understand the differential between total cost of ownership and the actual sticker price of a flat-panel display.

"People know about flat-panel displays now, but they often feel they are expensive compared to CRTs,"

says Compaq's DeFrees. "They want a [solution provider] to help them justify the cost and figure out why to buy the technology."