Whatever you may have heard about one display technology being better than the other, one thing is for sure - they are all selling well. There's equal support in the LCD and DLP camps and it appears the winner is the customer as projection quality has improved beyond what any of us in the market could have expected 10 years ago and they're getting easier and easier to use.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - we're on the verge of an industry explosion (in growth, that is).

Now that we have three portable projection categories (portable, ultra-portable and micro-portable) firmly established in the minds of the customer and

distribution channels, I thought it would be interesting to hypothesize what the future holds for portable projectors. So, after talking to industry experts, manufacturers and customers, I've come up with three possible scenarios.

So, let's take each of these scenarios apart and investigate the possibilities. In this three-part column, I will attempt to hypothesize the each possible outcome for the projector market as a whole. I'm not sure I have sufficiently formed an opinion on which way the market may go or should go, so I will leave my personal views out of this, but I will attempt to make a case for each scenario.

Scenario 1: The portable projector will eventually succumb to the same fate as the portable printer and many other PC peripheral devices we used to carry around the world as we traveled.

To be honest with you, this thought hadn't even crossed my mind until Jim Hall of Epson brought this scenario up at a panel discussion I participated in at INFOCOMM 2000 this past June in Anaheim. He wasn't making a case for this, nor was he necessarily of the opinion that this, in fact, might happen. He was simply bringing it up as a possibility.

Why might this happen?

Well, take a look at the similarities between the product categories. In the late 1980's the portable printer emerged as the ultimate traveling companion to the laptop. Printing presentations and documents was a hassle then as the laser printer was still relatively expensive and there weren't many around (at least around when and where we needed them). In fact, to print a document it was truly an ordeal. If you had a Windows compatible machine, the possibility of printing on 30% of the printers that were out there was not realistic as they were Apple compatible. Then, if you could find a printer, connecting it up to the average laptop could take as long as it does today to actually connect to the Internet with your mobile phone - it just wasn't easy.

So, when the portable bubble-jet style printers came along from companies like Epson and Canon, they were hailed as the traveler's companion. People bought them and packed them into their laptop cases everywhere they went. Small ribbon-type cables were included with the printer so space wasn't an issue inside the laptop bag. And, thus, anyone could print anywhere (as long as you could find paper).

Well, a few years later, the price of laser printers dipped below $500 (US) and the emergence of good-quality ink-jet printers changed that market peripheral forever. Everyone was able to afford a good quality printer for his or her office and home. Companies bought them like hotcakes and placed the on the desktop of their employees that needed privacy from the corporate "network" printer and hotels added them into the business center and made the available to anyone who wanted to print a document. Simultaneously, Kinko's grew substantially. Soon, there were as many Kinko's and Kinko's-style printing companies as there are coffee houses today. They were everywhere.

So, if you needed to print something, you could - easily. You'd run down to the business center in the hotel, drop by a Kinko's on your way to the client or even wait until you get to the client's site and print it using their printer. Now, you can even e-mail documents and presentations to Kinko's and they will print them for you and have them ready for you before you arrive. What's left? Well, add a coffee bar inside a Kinko's or install a few printers inside a coffee bar and you'll have the ultimate business center!

Well, as the rise in printer availability became clear, people stopped lugging around portable printers in their laptop cases. They just weren't required. In fact, how many people do you know actually carry around a printer? Now you can even print from Windows machines on Apple printers!

So, the hypothesis is: why carry around a projector if you can find one anywhere and everywhere you go?

Well, if the adoption of fixed-install projectors continues, it is possible that projectors will be so prolific that they will be available virtually everywhere. But, that has to happen first. Currently, that market is barely tapped. And, even where they are available (i.e. hotels), they are still expensive to rent and use. But, that may change. For instance, there is a movement to include the projector as a package in renting a meeting room in a hotel.

So, what's wrong with this hypothesis? Well, probably the biggest difference between these two markets is price. The portable printer and even the laser printer of today were and are in the $300 - $1000 (US) price range. Portable projectors, on the other hand, are in the $3000 - $7000 price range, for the most part.

So, will it happen? No one can predict that, but it is possible that is may happen one day.

Stay tuned next Wednesday for Part 2

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Gary Kayye is Principal of Kayye Consulting, a firm that specializes in providing marketing consulting, telephony integration and training development to the professional audiovisual industry. He spent 12 years at Extron and AMX as VP of Sales and Marketing before founding his own firm. He can be reached at www.kayye.com or via e-mail at gkayye@kayye.com. He is also the volunteer chairman of the PETC. He also founded KNews.