Vision Group Plc, the Scottish camera on a chip pioneer, has disappointed investors this year, but a new alternative to expensive digital cameras may prove to be the group’s best seller. Vision has just signed a deal with California-based Irvine Sensors Corp, a specialist in miniaturizing solid state devices, to develop a digital cartridge shaped like a standard 35mm film. The cartridge will consist of one of Vision’s sensor arrays, which sits behind the lens, together with the necessary memory and electronics to convert a conventional camera to digital format. Vision has been in the vanguard of CMOS-based (complementary metal oxide) vision sensors for a number of years. It now markets a 1.3 million pixel sensor array which the company claims gives near photographic quality images, while using less space and power than older CCD-based (charge coupled device) designs. But the slow up-take of desk-top videoconferencing (the group’s biggest market) and the sudden decline in revenues from children’s toy video cameras, has produced some unimpressive results. Losses for the six months to January were 2.6m pounds against a slim profit last time, while revenues fell 43% to 4.1m pounds. Poor results, combined with a failure to sign up a semiconductor partner with any marketing clout, has left the tiny Edinburgh-based group looking vulnerable, as bigger players begin to close the technology gap. The shares fell 20% on the half year results to just 79 pence, from a high last year of over 300 pence. But Vision still has cash reserves 9.2m pounds and while it is actively searching for a big semiconductor firm with which to partner, the company says it has no desire to rush headlong into a deal. Urgency is not a word I would use to describe it, said managing director Peter Denyer. In the meantime, spending on research and development will continue as before. Vision Group is also anticipating a surge in sales of its cheap, PC monitor mounted cameras once Windows 98 is launched in the Summer. Microsoft Corp’s latest operating system promises to contain embedded support for video conferencing. This, feels Vision, will mark the beginning of mass production for its cameras, as they begin to be automatically bundled with PCs.
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