NEC Readies Rollout Of Dual-Monitor Program
The Itasca, Ill.-based display vendor is wrapping up a seed program with a limited number of solution providers. The program supplied partners with demonstration models, marketing materials and ROI calculators that point up the advantages of two-monitor configurations. The vendor will roll out the program to its broader channels in the United States within a month, NEC executives said.
“We give them an ROI example that, basically, puts the productivity gains into dollars and cents reality,”
said Andres Maldonado, NEC&s director of product marketing. “Solution providers& customers can see how using two displays can actually pay for itself very quickly.”
The foundation for NEC&s two-display campaign was set two years ago, when the company and graphic card maker ATI co-sponsored a University of Utah study that detailed the benefits of using a two-monitor configuration. “The study looked at really typical office applications—Word, PowerPoint, Excel—having subjects do a variety of tasks. The results were pretty dramatic,” Maldonado said. “There were up to 10 percent productivity gains doing those tasks when they used two displays over one display. And there were [far] fewer errors.”
The adoption rate of two-display configurations may be picking up, some solution providers said.
“Once you go to two screens, you don&t want to go back,” said John Samborski, vice president of Ace Computers, an Arlington Heights, Ill.-based NEC partner. He said he uses a second monitor on his notebook in the office, and when he&s on the road, he feels “lost without it.”
Samborski said Ace Computers has seen some increased interest in dual-monitor setups. One customer, the U.S. Department of Defense, has requested dual-monitor systems in more than one instance.
“For the overall desktop space now, we&re starting to see people wanting to do it,” Samborski said. “Two years ago, a 17-inch LCD was $600. Now you can buy them for $250 each, spend less money, and have two monitors on your desktop.”