Display Technology: NEC-Mitsubishi Refines Image

Rising demand for liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) is being attributed to much of the improved market performance of this year's display technology category. With the shift to LCDs, there's been both ample opportunity and financial incentive for VARs to join vendor programs. In fact, the category boasts the third-highest reported return on investment in the 2002 VARBusiness Annual Report Card (ARC) survey,preceded only by the midrange servers and disk drives categories.

Report Card Score

This year, the category's market-share leader, NEC-Mitsubishi, earned recognition from its channel partners, delivering on product innovation, support and partnership programs. As the top contender in 11 of the 15 individual criteria, NEC-Mitsubishi swept the category, winning all subcategory awards prior to being acknowledged overall winner. Displacing ViewSonic, ARC champion for the past five years, NEC-Mitsubishi scored a 76 in the overall category, exceeding the category average by four points.

"We have always had great products and programs, but we did a better job last year of reaching more resellers and VARs," says T.J. Trojan, senior vice president of sales and technical services at NEC-Mitsubishi.

NEC-Mitsubishi captured the category's top loyalty ranking, with a score of 74. And, as icing on the cake, NEC-Mitsubishi was honored with the Comeback Player of the Year Award for swiftly moving up the ranks from last place to first place in just one year. This recovery, according to the solution providers we polled, was credited to NEC-Mitsubishi's improvements in partnering and channel relations.

AOC tied with ViewSonic for second place in this year's display technology category contest. Making considerable headway since settling for fourth place last year, AOC tied for three first placements: compatibility/ease of integration, ease of doing business, and overall revenue/profit potential. With highly valued programs, it earned second place in the support subcategory, scoring amply in postsales support and quality of technical support (at 76, each). Opportunely, solution providers were most apt to credit AOC's progress to the vendor's recent improvement in communication. And, as another bright spot on the impending horizon, three in five solution providers (60 percent) expect business with AOC to increase in the coming year.

At best, its high-quality display monitors were enough to earn ViewSonic a first-place tie with Sony for richness of product features this year. The ex-champ subsequently tied for second place with Samsung in the product innovation subcategory. ViewSonic's weaknesses included tying for fourth place in the partnership subcategory, which ranked highest in importance this year, and plunging from first to fourth place in postsales support.

For the second consecutive year, both Samsung and KDS tied for a position in the ARC survey. Unfortunately, this year they took fourth place in the overall category, falling from their respective runner-up spots of a year ago. While each vendor managed to garner three first-place showings, their disappointing subcategory rankings appear to be attributed to waning scores in product quality/reliability, presales support, postsales support and solution-provider programs.

Sony finished in last place overall, earning just one first-place mention. The ARC contender, returning from a year's absence, scored last in three out of four subcategories and earned the group's lowest score, a 56, for loyalty.

A vast majority of the products purchased by solution providers in the display technology category are being moved through tiered levels of distribution. Indeed, leading this year's ARC class overall, 87 percent of display technology purchases are currently being sourced through distributors, compared with 64 percent for the average purchase across all categories. Perhaps part of the reason is that some of this inventory comes at reduced prices due to the weakened economy but, nonetheless, transactions through the channel are the way to go.