MobileTechReview.com Interviews: our interview with Marc McConnaughey, ViewSonic's Senior VP, Advanced Technology Group

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This week we talk with Mr. Marc McConnaughey, Senior Vice President of ViewSonic's Advanced Technology Group. ViewSonic is one of the newest players in the Pocket PC arena, and the V35 has been well received thanks to its excellent transflective display, slim and lightweight design and low price. How did a company known primarily for high quality monitors and LCD displays get into PDAs? Who designed the V35? Read on to find out!

Interview:

MobileTechReview.com: How did you manage to make a quality Pocket PC at such an affordable price?

Marc McConnaughey: [Answered by Tom Offutt of ViewSonic] ViewSonic has always been known for providing high performance display products at an affordable price. The V35 is just another example of how well the ViewSonic development and manufacturing model works.

MobileTechReview.com: Transflective screens are obviously superior to other PDA screen technologies. Does this screen technology add significantly to unit price?

Marc McConnaughey of ViewSonic

Marc McConnaughey: The LCD panel is a major cost component of every PDA. ViewSonic was able to leverage our close relationships with leading design/manufacturing partners to incorporate the latest display technology in the V35.

MobileTechReview.com: Is there anything on the horizon that ViewSonic, a well-known monitor and LCD company, is working on that will surpass transflective technology?

Marc McConnaughey: There are many new developments in display technology that will be incorporated in future display-based products, among the most interesting for small display products is OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode). Although currently in its infancy, OLED shows great promise for use in battery powered devices.

MobileTechReview.com: The V35 uses a different memory technology from other Pocket PCs, whereby a portion of RAM is actually used by the unit and is unavailable to the user. Can you tell us a bit about how this works and the benefits it offers?

Marc McConnaughey: The V35 offers a lower cost memory architecture called NAND, enabling us to pass savings on to the customer. NAND also allows for faster random read speed and write performance, as well as larger block size. We felt all of these benefits were critical to our customers, and outweighed the need for additional accessible memory.

MobileTechReview.com: Good design usually goes along with price, but the V35 has good looks at a budget price. If you can tell us, who designed the V35? It's such an attractive, slim unit, especially in comparison to the new and similarly priced Dell Axim X5 which was designed by a company not known for elegant designs.

Marc McConnaughey: ViewSonic designed the V35...

MobileTechReview.com: You've already come out with a few key accessories, such as additional cradles and styli as well as the keyboard. Will we see any new accessories in the future for those who love to expand their PDAs? Also, will we see other models forthcoming from ViewSonic?

Marc McConnaughey: Although we do not disclose our roadmap, ViewSonic is committed to creating solutions that support our customers needs. We will continue to offer the solutions that improve the productivity of our consumers.

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