Flat-panel technology is poised to invade the desktop. Toshiba, Sharp, and NEC Corporation have increased manufacturing capacity, making flat-panel LCD screens more abundant - and less expensive. With LCD prices dropping between 10 and 15 percent in the last year, a window of opportunity has opened to exploit the weakest feature of traditional desktop cathode ray tubes - their ungainly bulk. Although first-generation consumer desktop LCDs - like Portrait Displays' US$1,500 PageMaster - use passive matrix screens, prices will continue to drop for higher-quality active matrix screens. "By 2000, we anticipate that the vast majority of screens will be active," says George Aboud of Stanford Resources Inc.
SCANS
Reclaiming the Desktop
