"Changing" is Mike Caddy's one-word response when asked about the market for display distributors. Luckily Anders Electronics' Product Manager, Displays, is on the side of those who see a glass that is half full rather than half empty. For him, the changes bring opportunities rather than threats. So what are the changes?
 Mike Caddy - Product Manager for Anders Electronics .
"Outsourcing is rampant", said Mike. "There is a fair amount of business still in the UK, there's enough to sustain the whole displays community, even though there are more of us in the displays community than there ever have been.
"One of the things that we are particularly conscious of is that you can do a lot to avoid some of the downsides of outsourcing by forming relationships with the organisations that will be receiving the outsourcing.
"For example there are quite a number of major subcontractor manufacturers out in Taiwan. Many of them have a relationship with the display manufacturers in the same way that they do with the silicon manufacturers, but they recognise the fact that if they need support, if they need stocking and continuity and logistical assistance, it actually behoves them to have a relationship with the original design in team in the UK. We've been quite successful in forging relationships with Taiwanese subcontractors."
Typically the contract will move from UK or European design and pre-production, with quantities of a thousand or so, to offshore outsourcing, when the organisation doing the build will probably go to the display manufacturer for production quantities.
"Even when this happens, the relationship still exists to the point that the manufacturer will acknowledge that the UK distributor had a significant part to play in getting that part designed in, and will pay a commission for that.
"If the distributor has agreed this in advance, on the basis that that is the way the development will go, that seems pretty fair to me.
"The initial production runs are of a sufficient volume to make the business worth winning and supporting and designing in; and a finite commission for a finite period of time secures the continuing support for the lifecycle of that product and for the next design-in process."
Anders has been active in promoting this kind of relationship for two years or so.
A further trend has been for customers to specialise in software development, perhaps at the expense of hardware expertise, relying on distributors to provide the latter.
"Most design houses will be developing a product on an embedded system of some sort, where the essence of the product is the software, the application, the user interface and so on; where the hardware may be not necessarily completely generic, but based on generic products in a module with a specially designed baseboard, perhaps. This would be done in-house, but much of the specialised user interface hardware would be developed with a company like Anders. They don't feel that they need to develop specialism in that area, they expect that capability and specialism to be outside their design team, and they expect to draw on that.
"That's one of the elements that contributes to the sort of loyalty that smooths the waters when the production of the device goes offshore.
"Rather than seeing the move offshore as a disastrous catastrophe, I think there's an opportunity to position one's company as an authority on that particular subject, to develop a degree of real engineering specialism that is difficult to replicate, that is genuinely valuable to that product house."
Anders has found that that kind of loyalty has meant that it heads the list when the next product opportunity comes along, Mike claimed.
Another change is that the support process is being much more tightly defined. This is particularly the case, he said, with embedded devices and embedded computing products, where customers are expected to buy a complete evaluation kit.
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"In material terms this seems quite expensive, until one realises that there is a year's worth of free, 24/7 email and telephone technical support included for the device.
"I'm increasingly seeing that kind of process, providing evaluation tools on a costed basis. It's a pretty formal arrangement - pay extra, and get support for a whole year. It's not the kind of support that has limits, it's unfettered for the year.
"This enables us to help the customer to get the product to market in the least amount of time."
Where manufacturers do not supply evaluation kits, Anders will do so themselves.
One of the key technical developments in the future of displays is, of course, OLEDs, which are attractive because they are thinner and less power-hungry than LCDs, potentially cheaper and with a better viewing angle. Their development has been hindered by short lifetimes, particularly the blue emitters. More recent products have claimed longer operating times - is this bringing them into the mainstream?
"Some OLED manufacturers are quoting lifetime numbers and brightness numbers so high that its really quite hard to see how they could be arrived at. There's a certain amount of specmanship going on in that sector."
There is progress, however. "Many OLEDs on the market will have a useable lifetime of between 20 and 50 thousand hours, particularly in the longer lasting colours, which is plenty for many applications. What some designers tend to overlook is that if they are using white LEDs as a backlight for your LCD, those LEDs may have an operational life less than an OLED.
"People have started to use OLEDs as product differentiators. If all your competitors are using LCD displays, for instance, using an OLED on your product will make it look different. Potentially crisper, and nicer to look at."
In many cases as manufacturers consider OLEDs for technical reasons, but then see the different look and feel they will give their product as equally important.
"There is room for distributors to capitalise on that, because the distributor is the bridge between the technology and what it's actually used for."
Displays and embedded technologies are increasingly merging. How does Anders see the future here?
"This is particularly true in the smaller embedded devices, where compactness and power are very critical things. That's a very fertile synchronicity.
"We have had a policy of aligning ourselves with the people who make the most compact embedded devices, and in fact developed products of our own based on those technologies and display technologies.
"We realised that what a lot of companies really want is something like a PDA but without the outsides. 'I want a small computing device where I don't have to do much about integration. I'll do some housing work because my housing is particular, but the essence of what my company does is make the software and market the product. I don't want to develop the rest of it.' They say."
Anders has started to develop a range of products in this vein, the first of which, Flea, is scheduled for launch in Q1 2007, with others on the roadmap.
"Flea is rather like a PDA, but with more connectivity than a PDA would normally have, and built to a more robust level of construction.
"It's a small computing device with a display, which allows someone who wants to develop a small portable computing device to focus on the software application and user interface rather than to develop the hardware as well."
Flea will initially be offered with an XScale PXA270 processor and TPO 3.5in. VGA resolution display, with resistive touch screen. The product will also have Zigbee - a simple wireless device to talk to sensors and transducers.
"That, for me, is an example of how embedded computers and displays inescapably connect with each other" Mike said.
"And its also an example of what we were talking about earlier, developing real engineering expertise that provides customers with something they need but don't want to do themselves."
t: +44 (0) 207 380 8181
f: +44 (0) 207 874 1908
e: sales@anders.co.uk
w; www.anders.co.uk
EDI-the-interview-04/12/06
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