Elo Touchsystems has released a fanless one-piece touch PC system which it hopes will appeal to resellers with space-conscious customers.
Based on the company’s 1525L 15-inch touch monitor, the Touchcomputer is aimed at retail and hospitality markets where companies want an inobtrusive all-in-one
device. Elo has squeezed a motherboard powered by a VAI Eden 667Mhz processor into the back of the monitor, which can run Windows CE, XP or 2000.
“”The nice thing about the technology we’ve used is the silent design,”” said Paul Wiener, Elo’s marketing manager in Menlo Park, Calif. “”If you have a quiet environment, a restaurant for fine dining, you don’t want to have a loud machine.
“”It also keeps the reliability high. Fans are one of things in a computer that has a low mean time between failures.””
Users can also hang the Touchcomputer from a swing arm to take it completely off a desk, he said.
The Windows CE version comes with the operating system burned into flash memory, making it a solid-state PC with no moving parts. The OS is small enough that most who opt for it feel that with 512K of memory there’s enough room for data without a hard drive, said Wiener.
The WinXP and 2000 versions, however, come with a hard drive because of the size of those operating systems.
The Touchcomputer comes with four USB and two serial, mouse and keyboard ports, as well as an RJ-11 jack for connection to a LAN. For those who have a wireless environment, there’s a PC Card slot which can accept a wireless card.
Options include a magnetic stripe reader for reading credit cards or employee ID cards, and a customer-facing display.
For the monitor, buyers have a choice of Elo’s IntelliTouch surface wave or AccuTouch five-wire resistive touch technologies.
Possible applications in-clude in-store cash systems, loyalty systems, kiosk information systems, casino management and Internet access points used for Web surfing and hotel reservations.
A WinXP system would cost about US$1,200, Wiener said.
There will not be a specific marketing program in Canada for the new device, Wiener said. Canada represents about 10 per cent of the company’s sales.
He hopes the Touchcomputer will account for 15 to 20 per cent of all Elo sales.
“”It should do well here,”” said Darrin Lewis, sales director of Compar Corp., a Markham, Ont. VAR, especially in the POS and kiosk markets because of the system’s flexibility.