By Chris Connery, Vice President, PC and Large Format Commercial Displays and John Jacobs, Director, Notebook Market Research
Indeed, as the worldwide market continues to shift its computing preference from stationary desktop personal computers to more portable devices (notebooks and mini-notes, in general), the LCD industry continues to worry about the health of the traditional desktop monitor-since most monitors sold in the world are typically sold as part of a PC+monitor bundle. US retailers worry about the monitor category, as they continue to see their sales trend toward mobile computing and are looking for strategic ways to help promote the notebook+monitor bundle. Retailers cannot do it alone, however, and with its new introduction earlier this month, maybe Apple is helping to blaze this trail.
Figure 1 – Apple’s New LED-Backlit LCD Monitor: Ahead of the Curve or Out in Left-Field?
There are many things that are unique about Apple’s new 24″W LED Cinema Display. Aside from its white-LED BLU, the new displays also employ a mini-DisplayPort connector-which is positioned to directly connect to the new MacBooks introduced at the same time. While DisplayPort is pin-compatible with other display connectors such as DVI (and thus requires only an inexpensive dumb connector, which Apple provides), many end-users are unfamiliar with DisplayPort, let-alone a mini version of the new VESA standard. Apple bloggers have compared the inclusion of this new (and only) connector in the 24″ LED Cinema Display to prior proprietary connectors that Apple used in the past for some ill-fated displays (such as ADC, which was replaced by the more widely used DVI connector in later revisions). Many of these Apple users are disappointed that the new display cannot be directly connected to say, their Mac Pro purchased just yesterday. Additionally, the inclusion of mini-DisplayPort as a captive-cable (meaning there is no port on the back of the display, just a cable coming out of the back with a mini-DisplayPort connector at the end) also rules out the sale of this display to other PC products, such as Windows-based machines.
Quite possibly, however, Apple is one of the only major PC companies in the world which can take forward-thinking steps like this. While some argue that such solutions do not allow for legacy compatibility, others argue that legacy compatibility is a technology burden and is what kept things like 3.5″ floppy drives around for so long. Indeed, the need to help accelerate the use of larger external displays by consumers is seen across the display industry. With some US retailers reporting notebook+monitor attach rates at well under 5%, any effort to heighten consumer awareness that their portable-computing experience at home can easily be more rich and longer-term by simply connecting to a larger, external display should be applauded.
This concept (and now reality) of easy connectivity of a notebook to an external display is made easier, not only through the connector itself, but also by the fact that when the new MacBooks are connected to the external display, they allow power to be drawn directly from the display! While this is a move forward for the industry, whether it is a move forward for Apple’s market share is yet to be seen. Clearly, Apple still focuses on consumers or vertical markets within the workplace. But, with consumer spending on the decline, companies that are more focused on consumer sales over commercial sales may find the near-term environment challenging for gaining market share.
