Businessweek

TransAct Technologies Incorporated designs, develops, assembles, markets, and services transaction printers under the Epic, Ithaca and Printrex brand names. Products, Services, and Distribution Methods Printers The company’s printers are configurable and offer customers the ability to choose from various features and functions. Options typically include interface configuration, paper cutting devices, paper handling capacities and cabinetry color. In addition to its configurable printers, the company designs and assembles custom printers for certain original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers. In collaboration with these customers, the company provides engineering and manufacturing expertise for the design and development of specialized printers. The company sells its products to OEMs, value-added resellers (VARs), and selected distributors, as well as directly to end-users. Its product distribution spans across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean Islands, and the South Pacific. Banking and POS: The company’s banking and POS printers include various optional configurations that can be selected to meet particular customer needs. In the banking market, it sells printers that are used by banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions to print and/or validate receipts at bank teller stations. In the POS market, the company sells various models of printers utilizing inkjet, thermal, and impact printing technology. The company’s printers are used primarily by retailers in the restaurant (including fine dining, casual dining, and fast food), hospitality, and specialty retail industries to print receipts for consumers, validate checks, or print on linerless labels or other inserted media. In the POS market, the company primarily sells its products through a network of domestic and international distributors and resellers. In the banking market, it primarily sells its products directly to end-user banks and financial institutions through the use of an internal sales force. Lottery: The company supplies lottery printers to Lottomattica’s GTECH Corporation (GTECH), its major customer and provider of lottery terminals. These printers are designed for high-volume, high-speed printing of lottery tickets for various lottery applications. Casino and gaming: The company sells various models of printers used in slot machines and video lottery terminals that print tickets or receipts instead of issuing coins at casinos, racetracks and other gaming establishments worldwide. These printers utilize thermal printing technology and can print tickets or receipts in monochrome or two-color (depending upon the model), and offer various other features, such as jam resistant bezels and a dual port interface that would allow casinos to print coupons/promotions. In addition, the company sells printers using thermal and impact printing technology for use in non-casino establishments, including game types, such as Amusements with Prizes (AWP), Skills with Prizes (SWP), Video lottery terminals (VLT), Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBT), and other off-premise gaming type machines around the world. It sells its products primarily to slot machine manufacturers, who incorporate its printers into slot machines and, in turn, sell completed slot machines directly to casinos and other gaming establishments and through three regional distributors (one in the United States and Asia, one in Europe and Africa, and one in Australia). The company also maintains a sales force to solicit sales from slot manufacturers and casinos, as well as manage sales through its distributors. TSG Through its TransAct Services Group (TSG), the company provides a range of supplies and consumables items (including inkjet cartridges, ribbons, receipt paper and other transaction supplies) used in the printing and scanning activities of customers in the hospitality, banking, retail, gaming, and government markets. It also offers replacement parts and maintenance services. Its maintenance services include the sale of extended warranties, multi-year maintenance contracts, 24-hour guaranteed replacement product service called TransAct Xpress, and other repair services for its printers. Within the United States, the company provides repair services through its eastern region service center in Ithaca, New York and its western region service center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Internationally, the company provides repair services through its European service center located in Doncaster, the United Kingdom, and through partners located worldwide. The company also provides customers with telephone sales and technical support, and a personal account representative to handle orders, shipping, and general information. Technical and sales support personnel receive training on all of its manufactured products and its services. In addition to personalized telephone and technical support, the company also markets and sells consumable products via its online Webstore www.transactsupplies.com. Sales Offices The company has a sales office located in Macau and two other sales offices located in the United States. Suppliers The company's suppliers include Hewlett-Packard Company and Okidata Americas, Inc. Competition In the banking and POS market, the company’s major competitor is Epson America, Inc. It also competes, to a much lesser extent, with Transaction Printer Group (TPG), Star Micronics America, Inc., Citizen -- CBM America Corporation, Pertech Resources, Inc., Addmaster, and Samsung/Bixolon. In the casino and gaming market (consisting principally of slot machine and video lottery terminal transaction printing), it competes with companies including FutureLogic, Inc., Nanoptix, Inc., and Custom Engineering SPA. In the Printrex market, the company competes with the Imaging Systems Group, Inc. (iSys), and GSI Group. History TransAct Technologies Incorporated was founded in 1996.