Luidia launches in the UK

The UK market for interactive white boards is one of the most sophisticated in the world, according to vendor Luidia.

Ron Murphy, director of worldwide sales at Luidia, made this claim as the vendor announced the opening of its first UK sales office in London.

Luidia's eBeam interactive white-board technology turns static white boards into interactive ones, the vendor said.

The technology uses a pen that emits infra-red signals followed by ultrasonic 'bursts'. These are picked up by a receiver that measures the time between the two signals to triangulate where the pen is on the white board.

"The effort put into interactivity in the UK is the best in the world," said Andi Brabin, channel manager at Luidia UK. "Government funding is helping to keep it the most sophisticated interactive audiovisual market."

Luidia recently signed a distribution agreement with Birmingham-based Splash AV. Luidia told CRN it will be looking to increase its reseller base throughout 2005.

UK resellers will benefit from the ability to create "education bundles" of equipment, crossselling eBeam with projectors and other interactive equipment, according to Brabin. He claimed that resellers will receive a 40 per cent margin on eBeam.

The manufacturer plans to target the SME market until April, but Brabin admitted that if it is to crack the corporate market, some product persuasion will be necessary.

"When we start targeting the corporate market, people will see it as something their kids use at school and not a business tool, so it will take time to change their point of view," he said.

Greg Finney, managing director of Splash AV, said he had some concerns about distributing the product initially.

"I was sceptical at first about the type of technology used, but it's a good product that works," he said.

"The laptop market could be introduced to this technology and it allows resellers to source additional revenue streams."

james_sherwood@vnu.co.uk