MIDDLEWARE

DisplaySearch, the worldwide leader in flat panel display (FPD) market research and consulting, today announced that the company has hired Jerry S. Benson Jr., former President of NEC Technologies, to the position of Vice President, Sales and Marketing. The company also announced that J. Norman Bardsley, Ph.D. has joined the firm as Director of Display Technology. These important additions reflect DisplaySearch's commitment to responding to the rapidly growing demand for the company's services, and to keeping pace with the expanding scope and scale of DisplaySearch's international conferences. Mr. Benson has over 20 years of high technology industry experience, including ten years with NEC Corporation, where he established and expanded the company's MultiSync(R) monitor business, attaining the position of President and Chief Operating Officer for NEC's business in the Americas. While there, Mr. Benson oversaw a number of major advancements in display, multimedia and portable computing technologies. He also founded the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). Mr. Benson was also President and Chief Executive Officer of VTEL Corporation, the videoconferencing systems, video networking, and streaming media innovator. Mr. Benson graduated from Duke University, and has been a member of the board of directors of a number of companies, including Inpak Corporation, Advantage Plus, and Packard Bell. Dr. Bardsley has been the Director of Roadmaps and Standards at the U.S. Display Consortium (USDC) for the past seven years. In this capacity, he has been responsible for monitoring trends, identifying technical challenges and uncovering business opportunities in the manufacture and application of electronic display technology. Prior to joining the USDC, Dr. Bardsley was Strategic Business Development Manager in the Information Technology Division of the Physics Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His work with LLNL comprised the promotion and oversight of a diverse set of research projects, including semiconductor processing, laser development and visualization systems for the supercomputing program. Dr. Bardsley received an M.A. in mathematics from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Manchester in England. He has been an educator, advisor, consultant and program manager for many academic, industrial and government organizations. Dr. Bardsley will continue his relationship with the USDC. Mr. Benson will be responsible for enhancing DisplaySearch's high rate of growth in sales of the company's expanding suite of market research reports, custom research projects and consulting services. In addition to augmenting business to customers in new and emerging market spaces and geographies, Mr. Benson will manage the development and marketing of the growing range of industry conferences that the company produces around the globe. Dr. Bardsley joins DisplaySearch's elite staff of researchers and analysts, and will apply his considerable experience and expertise in display technology by managing and contributing to a number of the firm's most indispensable and influential reports -- including reports that focus on technological advancements, developments in materials and reports that concentrate on specific display technologies. "The extraordinary developments in advanced flat panel displays used in computers and communications equipment and in entertainment systems and consumer electronics, are fueling an unprecedented appetite for information. As the world's leading resource for information in this arena, DisplaySearch is experiencing a dramatic increase in scope and scale," states DisplaySearch President Ross Young. "It is essential that our management and staff have the experience and expertise to remain ahead of this curve," continues Mr. Young, "and the addition of Mr. Benson and Dr. Bardsley ensures that we can respond to rising technological complexity and increasing market sophistication. Just six weeks ago we announced the addition of Bert McComas as our new Director of Display Electronics Market Research, and we anticipate hiring additional staff in the near future." Dr. Bardsley and Mr. McComas join a team of analysts located in Japan, Taiwan and North America, who possess combined language skills in English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Taiwanese and who have extensive experience at leading PC, FPD, semiconductor, FPD equipment and market research firms. This growing team represents DisplaySearch's continued commitment to providing the most knowledgeable and experienced personnel in the markets that it covers.