Sound like wishful thinking? Apparently Planar (http://www.planar.com/ ) doesn’t think so. On August 15th they announced they are entering the projector market with 4 models of projectors for businesses ranging form $699 to $1,399. Most people will tell you that this is now a low margin commodity product category. What’s Planar thinking?

The new projectors range from the $699 (MSRP) SVGA model PR3010 and the nearly identical XGA PR3020 at $999 to the $1,399 XGA PR5020. The line also includes a 2.8-pound ultra-portable also at $1,399, model PR6020. All these projectors are single chip DLP projectors with RYGWB color wheels, except for the PR6020, which has a RGBW wheel. Lumen outputs range from 2000 to 3000 lumens. The three conference room projectors have lamp lifetimes of 2000 hours in the "Boost" mode, 3000 hours in the "Standard" mode and 4000 hours in the "Economy" mode. The ultra-portable has no boost mode, with 2000-hour life in the standard mode and 3000 hours in economy.

Planar already has a well-establish channel for selling computer monitors, so the thinking is to "de-emphasize" its computer monitors in favor of other, higher-margin products. Projectors generally earn better profit margins than flat-panel computer monitors do, according to the company. Since LCD monitors today are commodity products sold at incredibly low prices, and the panels are sometimes sold at less than the manufacturing cost, that’s possible, but I wonder if near-by InFocus would agree that projectors have good profit margins.

Just two weeks ago Planar announced its expansion into the into the specialty home theater market. That announcement included LCD TV and the contrast-enhancing front projection Xscreen, plus mention of a home theater front projector. While LCD-TVs, the Xscreen and all four business projectors are on the Planar web site, there is no mention of a specific model of consumer home theater projector. Presumably, that announcement is coming.

In home theater, Planar is not planning to compete head-to-head in the low margin, mass-market portion of the market. They say their home theater products will be available "exclusively through specialty home theater distributors and dealers worldwide, who add value with thorough industry knowledge and installation capabilities." We agree that the home theater line can be a good high margin business - but do low cost business projectors offer good margins? Perhaps the only way to view these margins as "good" is compared to PC monitors. In that light, Planar is improving margins by moving from monitors to projectors in sales channels where they already have a major presence. While margins won’t be "high," they probably will be good enough to justify Planar’s move. -MB