Auckland firm taps into touch

Auckland technology company NextWindow is hoping the hype around last week's launch of Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, will eventually touch its own bottom line.

One of the heavily promoted features of Windows 7 is its built-in ability to process finger-based commands generated when users tap or touch a new generation of gesture-reading monitors that can be connected to the new operating system.

NextWindow has developed the touch-screen technology now used by several of the world's big PC manufacturers so the company's chief executive, Al Monro, has his fingers crossed that the software giant's enthusiasm for the touch interface will fuel sales of touch-enabled computers.

"Now the big driver for us is going to be how big the adoption of Windows 7 really is, and how big the adoption of touch is within that," Monro says.

There are encouraging signs that PC users like the idea of being able to ditch their mouse in favour of a finger tap when it comes to performing some computer tasks.

Touch-capable PCs have carved out a growing niche in the home computer market in the past two years.

Analyst firm DisplaySearch predicts the touch PC market will be worth US$9 billion ($12 billion) a year by 2015 and NextWindow's revenue has rocketed in the lead-up to the Windows 7 launch as computer manufacturers scramble to develop touch-capable machines.

In the year to March 31, 2008, NextWindow's sales totalled about $6 million. Revenue jumped to $48 million in the past financial year and Monro said the company was targeting a further increase of about 50 per cent in the current year.

The company, which also produces large touch screens for businesses, has about 80 staff and outsources its manufacturing to companies in Asia.

Its customers include big name PC brands HP, Dell and Sony.

It recently signed up with business software provider Oracle as the company's first New Zealand user of Oracle Agile Product Lifecycle Management, a product development software package it hopes will cut costs and improve efficiencies through better links between NextWindow's customers, its Auckland and Singapore offices, and its main manufacturing sites in Malaysia, Thailand and China.

In a back room at NextWindow's College Hill offices, engineering staff are testing an array of computers and monitors, some from other manufacturers who Munro said were customers he can't yet name.

While Microsoft's previous operating system, the unpopular Vista, had some touch components, Windows 7 takes touch functionality to the next level by allowing views of photos and programmes such as Windows' Explorer web browser and Adobe's document reader to be changed with a simple finger touch.

Monro admitted that type of functionality wouldn't sell many more computers but said it was the potential for software makers to develop new touch-enabled programmes that would drive sales.

"There's only so much resizing of the screen users will want to do in Explorer and Adobe but if we start to see genuine touch applications come out like kids' paintingprogrammes, it will drive interest," he says.

"Google Earth is an example of something that's just way easier and much more fun to use using touch. But what are Facebook going to do? What are Google, Yahoo and Microsoft going to do to create functionalities that will make it compelling for you and I and our families to use touch screens?"

Monro also admitted that growing the touch PC market involved cutting the cost of the technology to the point where there was as little price difference as possible between a touch enabled and a non-touch machine.

He said NextWindow was under pressure from its PC and monitor manufacturing customers to reduce costs while at the same time improve its technology.

But he said the company had a valuable head start in the market compared to its overseas rivals.