ViewSonic Corporation is a manufacturer and provider of visual technology, specifically CRT monitors, liquid crystal displays, projectors, plasma displays, HDTV technology, and mobile products, including Mini and All-in-One PCs and wireless monitors.
The privately held company has approximately $1 billion in worldwide sales annually. ViewSonic's headquarters are located in Walnut, California, United States.
The company was initially founded as Keypoint Technology Corporation in 1987. In 1990 it launched the ViewSonic line of color computer monitors, and shortly afterwards the company renamed itself after its brand. The founder, chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of ViewSonic is James Chu.[1]
An adult Gouldian Finch
The ViewSonic logo features Gouldian Finches, colorful birds native to Australia.
In the mid-1990s, ViewSonic rose to become one of the top-rated makers of computer CRT monitors, alongside Sony, NEC, MAG Innovision, and Panasonic. ViewSonic soon displaced the rest of these companies to emerge as the largest display manufacturer from America/Japan at the turn of the millennium.
In 2000, ViewSonic acquired the Nokia Display Products' branded business.
In 2005, ViewSonic and Tatung won a British patent lawsuit filed against them by LG Philips in a dispute over which company created technology for rear mounting of LCDs in a mobile PC (U.K. Patent GB2346464B, titled, “portable computer.").
On July 2, 2007, the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $143.8M in an IPO on NASDAQ.
On March 5, 2008, the company filed a withdraw request with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying "terms currently obtainable in the public marketplace are not sufficiently attractive to the Registrant to warrant proceeding with the initial public offering."
ViewSonic Corporation is a leading provider of cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) computer monitors, including those for high-end, computer-aided design, desktop publishing, and graphic design, and those offering state-of-the art technology at affordable prices. ViewSonic has six distinct product lines: desktop displays; television/entertainment displays; plasma displays; projectors; mobile and wireless displays; and peripherals, such as speakers, keyboards, and mice.
ViewSonic's focus on continued expansion both domestically and internationally paid off. In 1999, revenues reached $1 billion, and ViewSonic joined with Dell in a marketing campaign to promote its monitors coupled with Dell systems. It also attempted to capture market share in the ultralight category of presentation products with its full-size projection screen with self-contained LCD projector. The introduction coincided with a precipitous increase in sales of ultralight projectors. While projectors in general increase by a third in 1998, they simultaneously tripled in the ultralight category.
By 2000, ViewSonic had achieved 15 percent share of the LCD monitor market and 13.5 percent share of the CRT monitor market in the United States with $1.3 billion in annual sales. It was the fifth-largest seller of computer monitors in the country behind Dell, Compaq, Gateway, and Hewlett-Packard. The trend in the computer display market in the early years of the new century was a move from CRT to LCD, according to James Chu in a 2001 VAR Business article, a move for which his company was prepared. "ViewSonic is the market leader in North America for the CRT, and we want to be the leader for LCDs in North America, too." Worldwide, ViewSonic delivered more than one million LCD monitors in 2002 and that number more or less doubled in 2003.
The company began reaching for the high-end monitor market with the 2001 acquisition of the display products unit of Finland's Nokia, Europe's display specialist, and also moved into the market for hand-held Internet access devices with ten versions of wireless handhelds. In so doing, ViewSonic hoped to leverage its strong position in displays since a handheld's screen accounted for as much as 75 percent of its value.
ViewSonic moved forward in the field of projectors as well. In 2001, it purchased Advanced Optical Engineering Inc. of California, a company that made optical equipment and light engines for use in digital projection displays. The new subsidiary, renamed Advanced Digital Optics Inc., continued to develop equipment for IMAX, JVC, and Prokia, while also developing light engines for digital projections displays for its parent company. The acquisition also put ViewSonic in a position to partner with Cogent Technologies, a company with a broad array of patented, energy efficient methods for light delivery, including novel uses of plastic fiber optics, to produce brighter, higher-resolution, lower-cost displays for computer monitors and high-definition and smart televisions.
Other product developments included the 2000 introduction of a phone with touch sensitive screen and Web browsing capabilities and the 2002 introduction of high-definition monitors using rear projection technology for computers or high-definition televisions. ViewSonic also collaborated with MeshNetworks Inc., a developer of mobile broadband networking technology to develop and market PDAs and tablet PCs with high-speed Internet access. In 2003, ViewSonic introduced its portable video player, which combined an MP3 player, digital photo album, and portable DVD player.
ViewSonic also continued its penetration into the global marketplace. Having entered the Chinese mainland in the late 1990s, it formed several alliances with partners in Taiwan to expand its presence in the information appliance market there in 2000. "About a decade ago, we promised to surpass NEC Corp. as the No. 1 monitor brand in the U.S., and we did it," chairman and chief executive Chu recalled in a Taiwan Economic News article in 2000. "By forming strategic alliances with firms in Taiwan [to manufacture LCD modules], we will be well-positioned to out-gun Sony, Panasonic, and other top monitor makers in the global market." Aiming to enhance its presence in South America as well, it joined with Microgobal Argentina SA as the official distributor of its products in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela in 2003.
As ViewSonic's leadership looked to the future, it foresaw a shift toward wireless and mobile capability for the personal computer accompanied by the use of multiple smart displays. It set itself the goal of continuing to lead the "visual revolution" as the "world moved from analog to digital and from PC-centric to display-centric," where the display, as the focal point for access to and control of information or entertainment, might be on the desk, on the wall, or in hand. ViewSonic sold Advanced Digital Optics, Inc. to JDS Uniphase in 2004. It entered the home networking market in 2004 with the release of wireless equipment that included media gateways and adapters.
Principal Subsidiaries: ViewSonic Europe Ltd.; ViewSonic Canada.
Principal Competitors: Acer; ADI Systems; Apple Computer; BenQ; Daewoo International; Dell; Fujitsu; Gateway; Hewlett-Packard; InFocus; LG Electronics; LG Philips LCD; Matsushita; Mitsubishi Corporation; NEC; NEC-Mistubishi Electrical Visual Systems; palmOne; Philips North America; Philips Electronics; Planar Systems; Princeton Digital; Samsung Electronics; Sharp; Sony.
In 1998, ViewSonic announced that two of its Professional Series monitors achieved TCO '99 certification.
In 2000, ViewSonic partnered with AT&T to offer Internet appliances integrated with the AT&T WorldNet Service, initially targeting the corporate market. The Internet appliances ranged from standalone i-boxes, integrated LCD and CRT devices, to web phones and wireless web pads. The units were deemed capable of operating on nearly any operating system, including Windows CE, Linux, QNX and VxWorks.
In 2002 ViewSonic announced a 3840 x 2400 WQUXGA, 22.2-inch monitor, VP2290.
ViewSonic was the first manufacturer to bring Smart Display to the market, with the Airpanel V150 in early 2003. This included a 15" 1024×768 LCD, a 400MHz Intel XScale processor, 32MB ROM, 64MB RAM and 802.11b wireless, and a USB wireless hub for the host PC.
At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, ViewSonic introduced display products, namely a projector, monitors and an HDTV set, capable of being connected directly to a video iPod.
The ViewSonic LCD monitor range currently includes four product groups, the VA value range, the VG multimedia range, the VX gamer range, and the VP professional range. The two-letter range codes are always used at the start of the product name followed by a number which indicates the diagonal screen size. They also produce the Optiquest line of budget displays.
On May 31, 2011, the ViewPad 7x will debut at the Computex computer show in Taipei, Taiwan, Pocket-Lint reported, and will be a follow-up rather than a replacement to ViewSonic's existing ViewPad 7 tablet, which runs Android 2.2, aka Froyo.
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1987 as Keypoint Technology Corporation
Employees: 743
Sales: $1.1 billion (2003)
NAIC: 334110 Computer and Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 334111 Electronic Computer Manufacturing; 334119 Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 334310 Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing
Key Dates:
1987: James Chu founds Keypoint Technology Corporation.
1990: Keypoint Technologies introduces the ViewSonic brand of color computer monitors.
1994: Viewsonic forms a strategic alliance with Optiquest.
1998: Midwich Thame becomes the company's European distributor.
2000: Viewsonic partners with Microgobal Argentina SA to distribute its products in South America and acquires the display products unit of Finland's Nokia.
2001: The company purchases Advanced Optical Engineering Inc. of California; the new subsidiary is renamed Advanced Digital Optics Inc.
2002: ViewSonic collaborates with MeshNetworks Inc.
2004: The company sells Advanced Digital Optics, Inc. to JDS Uniphase.
Name Age Since Current Position
S. Robson Walton 66 1992 Chairman of the Board
Michael Duke 61 2009 President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
Eduardo Castro-Wright 56 2010 Vice Chairman - Global eCommerce and Global Sourcing
Charles Holley 54 2010 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Rollin Ford 48 2006 Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Jeffrey Gearhart 46 2010 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
C. Douglas McMillon 44 2009 Executive Vice President; President & CEO of Walmart International
Susan Chambers 54 2006 Executive Vice President - People Division
Leslie Dach 56 2006 Executive Vice President - Corporate Affairs and Government Relations
Brian Cornell 52 2009 Executive Vice President; President and Chief Executive Officer - Sam’s Club Division
William Simon 51 2010 Executive Vice President; President and Chief Executive Officer of Walmart U.S.
Cindy Davis 2011 Executive Vice President - Global Consumer Insights
Steven Whaley 51 2007 Senior Vice President, Controller
H. Lee Scott 62 2011 Director
Jim Walton 62 2005 Director
James Breyer 49 2010 Presiding Independent Director
M. Michele Burns 53 2003 Independent Director
Christopher Williams 53 2004 Independent Director
Douglas Daft 68 2005 Independent Director
Linda Wolf 63 2005 Independent Director
Aida Alvarez 61 2006 Independent Director
James Cash 63 2006 Independent Director
Roger Corbett 68 2006 Independent Director
Gregory Penner 41 2008 Independent Director
Arne Sorenson 52 2008 Independent Director
Steven Reinemund 63 2010 Independent Director
Address:
381 Brea Canyon Road
Walnut, California 91789
U.S.A.
The privately held company has approximately $1 billion in worldwide sales annually. ViewSonic's headquarters are located in Walnut, California, United States.
The company was initially founded as Keypoint Technology Corporation in 1987. In 1990 it launched the ViewSonic line of color computer monitors, and shortly afterwards the company renamed itself after its brand. The founder, chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of ViewSonic is James Chu.[1]
An adult Gouldian Finch
The ViewSonic logo features Gouldian Finches, colorful birds native to Australia.
In the mid-1990s, ViewSonic rose to become one of the top-rated makers of computer CRT monitors, alongside Sony, NEC, MAG Innovision, and Panasonic. ViewSonic soon displaced the rest of these companies to emerge as the largest display manufacturer from America/Japan at the turn of the millennium.
In 2000, ViewSonic acquired the Nokia Display Products' branded business.
In 2005, ViewSonic and Tatung won a British patent lawsuit filed against them by LG Philips in a dispute over which company created technology for rear mounting of LCDs in a mobile PC (U.K. Patent GB2346464B, titled, “portable computer.").
On July 2, 2007, the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $143.8M in an IPO on NASDAQ.
On March 5, 2008, the company filed a withdraw request with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying "terms currently obtainable in the public marketplace are not sufficiently attractive to the Registrant to warrant proceeding with the initial public offering."
ViewSonic Corporation is a leading provider of cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) computer monitors, including those for high-end, computer-aided design, desktop publishing, and graphic design, and those offering state-of-the art technology at affordable prices. ViewSonic has six distinct product lines: desktop displays; television/entertainment displays; plasma displays; projectors; mobile and wireless displays; and peripherals, such as speakers, keyboards, and mice.
ViewSonic's focus on continued expansion both domestically and internationally paid off. In 1999, revenues reached $1 billion, and ViewSonic joined with Dell in a marketing campaign to promote its monitors coupled with Dell systems. It also attempted to capture market share in the ultralight category of presentation products with its full-size projection screen with self-contained LCD projector. The introduction coincided with a precipitous increase in sales of ultralight projectors. While projectors in general increase by a third in 1998, they simultaneously tripled in the ultralight category.
By 2000, ViewSonic had achieved 15 percent share of the LCD monitor market and 13.5 percent share of the CRT monitor market in the United States with $1.3 billion in annual sales. It was the fifth-largest seller of computer monitors in the country behind Dell, Compaq, Gateway, and Hewlett-Packard. The trend in the computer display market in the early years of the new century was a move from CRT to LCD, according to James Chu in a 2001 VAR Business article, a move for which his company was prepared. "ViewSonic is the market leader in North America for the CRT, and we want to be the leader for LCDs in North America, too." Worldwide, ViewSonic delivered more than one million LCD monitors in 2002 and that number more or less doubled in 2003.
The company began reaching for the high-end monitor market with the 2001 acquisition of the display products unit of Finland's Nokia, Europe's display specialist, and also moved into the market for hand-held Internet access devices with ten versions of wireless handhelds. In so doing, ViewSonic hoped to leverage its strong position in displays since a handheld's screen accounted for as much as 75 percent of its value.
ViewSonic moved forward in the field of projectors as well. In 2001, it purchased Advanced Optical Engineering Inc. of California, a company that made optical equipment and light engines for use in digital projection displays. The new subsidiary, renamed Advanced Digital Optics Inc., continued to develop equipment for IMAX, JVC, and Prokia, while also developing light engines for digital projections displays for its parent company. The acquisition also put ViewSonic in a position to partner with Cogent Technologies, a company with a broad array of patented, energy efficient methods for light delivery, including novel uses of plastic fiber optics, to produce brighter, higher-resolution, lower-cost displays for computer monitors and high-definition and smart televisions.
Other product developments included the 2000 introduction of a phone with touch sensitive screen and Web browsing capabilities and the 2002 introduction of high-definition monitors using rear projection technology for computers or high-definition televisions. ViewSonic also collaborated with MeshNetworks Inc., a developer of mobile broadband networking technology to develop and market PDAs and tablet PCs with high-speed Internet access. In 2003, ViewSonic introduced its portable video player, which combined an MP3 player, digital photo album, and portable DVD player.
ViewSonic also continued its penetration into the global marketplace. Having entered the Chinese mainland in the late 1990s, it formed several alliances with partners in Taiwan to expand its presence in the information appliance market there in 2000. "About a decade ago, we promised to surpass NEC Corp. as the No. 1 monitor brand in the U.S., and we did it," chairman and chief executive Chu recalled in a Taiwan Economic News article in 2000. "By forming strategic alliances with firms in Taiwan [to manufacture LCD modules], we will be well-positioned to out-gun Sony, Panasonic, and other top monitor makers in the global market." Aiming to enhance its presence in South America as well, it joined with Microgobal Argentina SA as the official distributor of its products in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela in 2003.
As ViewSonic's leadership looked to the future, it foresaw a shift toward wireless and mobile capability for the personal computer accompanied by the use of multiple smart displays. It set itself the goal of continuing to lead the "visual revolution" as the "world moved from analog to digital and from PC-centric to display-centric," where the display, as the focal point for access to and control of information or entertainment, might be on the desk, on the wall, or in hand. ViewSonic sold Advanced Digital Optics, Inc. to JDS Uniphase in 2004. It entered the home networking market in 2004 with the release of wireless equipment that included media gateways and adapters.
Principal Subsidiaries: ViewSonic Europe Ltd.; ViewSonic Canada.
Principal Competitors: Acer; ADI Systems; Apple Computer; BenQ; Daewoo International; Dell; Fujitsu; Gateway; Hewlett-Packard; InFocus; LG Electronics; LG Philips LCD; Matsushita; Mitsubishi Corporation; NEC; NEC-Mistubishi Electrical Visual Systems; palmOne; Philips North America; Philips Electronics; Planar Systems; Princeton Digital; Samsung Electronics; Sharp; Sony.
In 1998, ViewSonic announced that two of its Professional Series monitors achieved TCO '99 certification.
In 2000, ViewSonic partnered with AT&T to offer Internet appliances integrated with the AT&T WorldNet Service, initially targeting the corporate market. The Internet appliances ranged from standalone i-boxes, integrated LCD and CRT devices, to web phones and wireless web pads. The units were deemed capable of operating on nearly any operating system, including Windows CE, Linux, QNX and VxWorks.
In 2002 ViewSonic announced a 3840 x 2400 WQUXGA, 22.2-inch monitor, VP2290.
ViewSonic was the first manufacturer to bring Smart Display to the market, with the Airpanel V150 in early 2003. This included a 15" 1024×768 LCD, a 400MHz Intel XScale processor, 32MB ROM, 64MB RAM and 802.11b wireless, and a USB wireless hub for the host PC.
At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, ViewSonic introduced display products, namely a projector, monitors and an HDTV set, capable of being connected directly to a video iPod.
The ViewSonic LCD monitor range currently includes four product groups, the VA value range, the VG multimedia range, the VX gamer range, and the VP professional range. The two-letter range codes are always used at the start of the product name followed by a number which indicates the diagonal screen size. They also produce the Optiquest line of budget displays.
On May 31, 2011, the ViewPad 7x will debut at the Computex computer show in Taipei, Taiwan, Pocket-Lint reported, and will be a follow-up rather than a replacement to ViewSonic's existing ViewPad 7 tablet, which runs Android 2.2, aka Froyo.
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1987 as Keypoint Technology Corporation
Employees: 743
Sales: $1.1 billion (2003)
NAIC: 334110 Computer and Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 334111 Electronic Computer Manufacturing; 334119 Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 334310 Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing
Key Dates:
1987: James Chu founds Keypoint Technology Corporation.
1990: Keypoint Technologies introduces the ViewSonic brand of color computer monitors.
1994: Viewsonic forms a strategic alliance with Optiquest.
1998: Midwich Thame becomes the company's European distributor.
2000: Viewsonic partners with Microgobal Argentina SA to distribute its products in South America and acquires the display products unit of Finland's Nokia.
2001: The company purchases Advanced Optical Engineering Inc. of California; the new subsidiary is renamed Advanced Digital Optics Inc.
2002: ViewSonic collaborates with MeshNetworks Inc.
2004: The company sells Advanced Digital Optics, Inc. to JDS Uniphase.
Name Age Since Current Position
S. Robson Walton 66 1992 Chairman of the Board
Michael Duke 61 2009 President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
Eduardo Castro-Wright 56 2010 Vice Chairman - Global eCommerce and Global Sourcing
Charles Holley 54 2010 Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Rollin Ford 48 2006 Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Jeffrey Gearhart 46 2010 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
C. Douglas McMillon 44 2009 Executive Vice President; President & CEO of Walmart International
Susan Chambers 54 2006 Executive Vice President - People Division
Leslie Dach 56 2006 Executive Vice President - Corporate Affairs and Government Relations
Brian Cornell 52 2009 Executive Vice President; President and Chief Executive Officer - Sam’s Club Division
William Simon 51 2010 Executive Vice President; President and Chief Executive Officer of Walmart U.S.
Cindy Davis 2011 Executive Vice President - Global Consumer Insights
Steven Whaley 51 2007 Senior Vice President, Controller
H. Lee Scott 62 2011 Director
Jim Walton 62 2005 Director
James Breyer 49 2010 Presiding Independent Director
M. Michele Burns 53 2003 Independent Director
Christopher Williams 53 2004 Independent Director
Douglas Daft 68 2005 Independent Director
Linda Wolf 63 2005 Independent Director
Aida Alvarez 61 2006 Independent Director
James Cash 63 2006 Independent Director
Roger Corbett 68 2006 Independent Director
Gregory Penner 41 2008 Independent Director
Arne Sorenson 52 2008 Independent Director
Steven Reinemund 63 2010 Independent Director
Address:
381 Brea Canyon Road
Walnut, California 91789
U.S.A.
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