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Fast Facts

The Company

Founded in 1971. Invented touchscreen overlay technology. A business unit of Tyco Electronics Ltd.

  • We design, manufacture, and market nearly 500,000 products
  • We have 200,000 customer locations
  • We spent $640 million on R&D and engineering in 2008
  • We have nearly 8,000 engineers
  • We apply for more than 750 patents annually, hold more than 16,000 patents and patent applications in total
  • We have an established manufacturing presence in over 25 countries, we operate in approximately 50 countries, and we serve customers in more than 150 countries
  • With sales of US$10.3 billion in fiscal 2009, we are significantly larger than many of our competitors

Products

Industry-leading touchscreen product lines:

  • Acoustic pulse recognition (APR) touchscreen overlays
  • IntelliTouch and SecureTouch surface-wave touchscreen overlays
  • CarrollTouch infrared touch sensors
  • AccuTouch five-wire and AT4 four-wire resistive touchscreen overlays
  • Projected and surface capacitive touchscreen overlays
  • LCD touchmonitors in various form factors
  • All-in-one touchcomputers

Full line of touchscreen controllers; software drivers for popular operating environments, including Windows, Macintosh and Linux; application development tools.

Elo developed many proprietary designs for touch technologies and products.

Major Markets and Applications

  • Kiosks: point of information, self-service, transaction
  • Point-of-sale: restaurant, retail, lodging, self-service systems
  • Industrial: process & machine control, test & measurement, security & alarm
  • Gaming/entertainment: casino, lottery, bingo, amusement
  • Medical/healthcare: equipment, hospital/doctor office system, patient care
  • Financial: banking, office automation, point of information
  • Transportation: ticket machines, in-vehicle

Employees

We have about 96,000 dedicated employees throughout the world, with approximately 36,000 employees in China alone.

Sales

With a 50-plus year history, Tyco Electronics is a US$14.8 billion global provider of engineered electronics components. Products sold through direct sales offices, distributors and manufacturer's representatives worldwide. Although Elo does not release sales revenue publicly, Elo is recognized as the world's largest touch products company.

Facilities

R&D and manufacturing facilities in Menlo Park, California; Kessel-Lo, Belgium; Yokohama, Japan; and Su Zhou, China. North American offices in Menlo Park, California, with additional offices throughout Europe, Latin America, and Asia/Pacific.

Executives

Timeline

1971 Elo founder Dr. Samuel C. Hurst invents the world's first electronic touch interface.
1974 Elo enhances computer touch system, incorporating transparent surface.
1977 Elo develops its proprietary AccuTouch five-wire resistive technology - the most popular touchscreen technology in use today.
1986 Elo becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Raychem Corporation.
1987 Elo launches the IntelliTouch product line, based on innovative surface-wave technology.
1987 Elo launches first touchscreen driver software for DOS, ELODEV.
1989 Elo introduces world's first mouse emulation driver, MonitorMouse, for DOS and Microsoft Windows 2.0. Implementation of touch accelerates rapidly.
1991 Elo achieves major technical breakthrough in IntelliTouch product line, doubling speed, resolution, and sensitivity.
1995 Elo launches three new products: high-speed IntelliTouch Ultra with increased resolution, AccuTouch HL with 37 percent increase in light transmission, and MonitorMice software driver that allows multiple monitors running Windows to operate from a single PC.
1996 Elo celebrates a quarter century in the touchscreen business.
1997 Elo completes move to new 80,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.
1999 Elo introduces breakthrough development of iTouch "touch-on-tube" surface-wave technology.
1999 Elo adds Carroll Touch Systems and becomes part of Tyco Electronics.
1999 Elo acquires custom touchmonitor manufacturer National Integration Services, Inc.
1999 Elo acquires the remaining portion of Touch Panel Systems Japan from Daicel Chemical.
2000 Elo adds custom operations from Touchscreen Systems Limited, United Kingdom and International Concept, France.
2000 Elo introduces Entuitive touchmonitors "designed for touch," offering reliable operation, superior performance, and ease of use and installation.
2001 Elo establishes sales offices in Brazil, Argentina, and Miami to serve the Central America, Caribbean and Latin American markets. 
2003 Elo adds AT4 four-wire resistive products to its AccuTouch technology family.
2003 Elo adds projected capacitive to its family of touch technologies, with a choice of DirectTouch or ThruTouch monitor options.
2004 Elo moves headquarters to Menlo Park, California.
2004 Elo introduces its first touchcomputer.
2004 Elo adds surface capacitive touch technology to portfolio.
2005 Elo adds surface capacitive technology to touchmonitor line.
2006 Elo adds acoustic pulse recognition (APR) touch technology to portfolio and celebrates 35 years in the touchscreen business.
2007 Tyco Electronics separates from Tyco International, establishing a new corporation (NYSE: TEL).
2008 Elo launches 1900L/2200L Zero-Bezel APR touchmonitors.
2009 Elo announces multi-touch capability for analog resistive screens, Resistive Gestures.

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