ViewSonic Corporation is an American privately held multinational electronics company with headquarters in Brea, California, United States.
The company was founded in 1987 as Keypoint Technology Corporation by James Chu and was renamed to its present name in 1993, after a brand name of monitors launched in 1990. Today, ViewSonic specializes in visual display hardware—including liquid-crystal displays, projectors, and interactive whiteboards—as well as digital whiteboarding software. The company trades in three key markets: education, enterprise, and entertainment.
Company history
The company was initially founded as Keypoint Technology Corporation in 1987 by James Chu. In 1990 it launched the ViewSonic line of color computer monitors, and shortly afterward the company renamed itself after its monitor brand.[1]
In the mid-1990s, ViewSonic rose to become one of the top-rated makers of computer CRT monitors, alongside Sony, NEC, MAG InnoVision, and Panasonic. ViewSonic soon displaced the rest of these companies to emerge as the largest display manufacturer from America/Japan at the turn of the millennium.
In 2000, ViewSonic acquired the Nokia Display Products' branded business.[3]
In 2002 ViewSonic announced a 3840x2400 WQUXGA, 22.2-inch monitor, VP2290.
In 2005, ViewSonic and Tatung won a British patent lawsuit filed against them by LG Philips in a dispute over which company created technology for rear mounting of LCDs in a mobile PC (U.K. Patent GB2346464B, titled “portable computer").[4]
On March 5, 2008, the company filed a withdraw request with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying "terms currently obtainable in the public marketplace are not sufficiently attractive to the Registrant to warrant proceeding with the initial public offering".[6]
In 2017, ViewSonic entered the interactive whiteboard market with its ViewBoard flat panels and myViewBoard software. ViewSonic was named a best-selling collaboration display brand in 2018.[7] By 2019, more than 5,500 elementary and junior high schools in the United States had installed ViewBoards, and ViewSonic ranked third in global interactive display market share, excluding China.[8] ViewSonic became a Google for Education partner in 2019[9] and a Microsoft Education partner in 2020.[10]
In 1998, ViewSonic announced that two of its Professional Series monitors achieved TCO '99 certification.[12]
In 2000, ViewSonic partnered with AT&T Corporation to offer Internet appliances integrated with the AT&T WorldNet Service, initially targeting the corporate market. The Internet appliances ranged from standalone i-boxes, integrated LCD and CRT devices, to web phones and wireless web pads. The units were deemed capable of operating on nearly any operating system, including Windows CE, Linux, QNX and VxWorks.[13]
In 2002, ViewSonic announced a 3840x2400 WQUXGA, 22.2-inch monitor, VP2290.[14]
On May 31, 2011, the ViewPad 7x debuted at the Computex computer show in Taipei, Taiwan, Pocket-Lint reported, being a follow-up rather than a replacement to ViewSonic's existing ViewPad 7 tablet, which runs Android 2.2, a.k.a. Froyo.[16]
In 2017, ViewSonic rolled out its ViewBoard smart interactive whiteboards. By 2019, more than 5,500 elementary and junior high schools in the United States had installed ViewBoards, and ViewSonic ranked third in global interactive display market share (excluding China).[17]
