The Competition

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Business Plans

Touchtop Technologies, Inc.

THE COMPETITION

TouchTop Technologies, Inc. competes with professional research organizations, leading display technology producers and many others attempting to break into the display technology industry. Although other alternatives to AMLCD exist, none have proven their manufacturability, scientific credibility, or commercial viability. Even the most promising alternative to AMLCD technology, that is the Field Emission Display, only offers a 33% savings in production costs. TouchTop's LEDCD is designed to be manufactured by existing AMLCD facilities resulting in production savings of over 85%.

The most immediate competition to TouchTop Technologies Company, Inc. is the Infinite Gain Corporation of Irvine, CA and Angle Tech. of San Pedro, CA. The Infinite Gain Corporation has the best-developed Field Emission Display Process (FED) in the industry. This company was founded in 1990 and its FED boasts viewing angles of up to 170 degrees, and a contrast ratio of 100 to 1. This compares with TouchTop's contrast ratio of 20,000 to 1 and viewing angle of 170 degrees.

Infinite Gain Corporation's customers include Sharpe, Toshibaa, NEEC, and Hoshidenn. Infinite Gain's license and royalty agreements are negotiated on an individual basis. Each client yields $24.25 Million per year in revenue on average.

A summary of competitor profiles follows:

Growth

Revenue

Lic./Royt.

Service

Gross

G. Margin

Competitor Name

Rate

In Millions

% of Rev.

% of Rev.

Margin %

Lic./Royt.

Infinite Gain

110%

$97.00

85.01%

14.99%

96.52%

98.21%

Angle Tech.

86%

$35.11

70.12%

29.88%

97.33%

93.40%

Vision

12%

$200.02

88.01%

11.99%

97.03%

99.13%

TouchTop Proj. 99'

180%

$59.60

85.26%

14.74%

95.93%

99.99%

G. Margin

Operating

% Sales

% R&D

%G&A

Year

Competitor Name

Service

Margin %

Mktg. Exp.

Expense

Expense

Founded

Infinite Gain

49.54%

57.21%

13.72%

15.55%

10.95%

1989

Angle Tech.

61.09%

64.05%

9.10%

14.44%

9.74%

1992

Vision

45.08%

45.13%

21.70%

21.80%

7.30%

1990

TouchTop Proj. 99'

72.00%

70.00%

19.30%

4.89%

4.61%

1996

P/E

Ticker

Major

Avg. Rev.

Head-

Rev.

Competitor Name

Ratio

Symbol

Customers

Per Cust.

Count

Per EE

Infinite Gain

50

INFG

4

$24.25M

130

$746K

Angle Tech.

33

AGTC

3

$11.70M

30

$1.17M

Vision

29

VSNT

15

$13.33M

220

$909K

TouchTop Proj. 99'

N/A

N/A

3

$19.88M

71

$839K

TouchTop Technologies, Inc.

Infinite Gain's management team is led by Dr. William Sharpes. Dr. Sharpes has written numerous texts on display technology and founded the company in 1990 with 4 key patented technologies he developed. The company has developed strong ties with its customers and managed to grow revenues by over 100% in 1997.

Angle Tech is essentially the research arm of Optrexe International. Although the firm is a public company, nearly 90% of its sales are made to its majority shareholder, Optrexe. The most significant accomplishment of Optrexe over the past several years has been gains made in the area of Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Displays.

Ferroelectric Displays, FLCDs, are liquid crystals that maintain their charge after the electric field is turned off. One of the advantages of this technology is that power consumption in portable devices is significantly reduced. However, controlling contrast in FLCD's has consistently required counterproductive supporting technologies. All evidence suggests that the cost of manufacturing FLDC's is greater than, or equal to, the cost of producing current AMLCD's.

Vision, Inc. is the least threatening of TouchTop's most direct competitors. Although the company licenses technology to virtually all of the top ten LCD producers, its patents are primarily based on methods of improving existing Passive Matrix Displays. The company uses various "twisting" techniques to enhance both resolution and viewing angle. Although LCD producers acknowledge that Passive Matrix Displays have a limited future, Vision's innovative improvements to this technology benefit producers in two ways. First, firms can extend the life cycle of Passive LCD's with Vision's twisting techniques. Secondly, by using existing production facilities and mature product components, manufacturers can target the price conscious segments of the display market. Despite these strengths, the consensus opinion in the scientific community is that Vision's days are numbered and the company is essentially a cash cow.

The Market 13.