Ideum, which I covered back in February, has released a new version of their 50" multi-touch table, the MT-50 Table, for non-profit organization such as museums. Ideum hardened the device claiming the large multitouch table is even more rugged than a Microsoft Surface. That's an impressive claim.I've owned a Microsoft Surface for several months and it can take serious abuse. I have four children the oldest of which is 7 and they have climbed and stood and even stomped on the device many times. I have dropped my keys and other objects on it without a scratch and while I treated it with reverence for the first couple months after I bought it, its now just another piece of furniture in my office - all be it a really cool, interactive, piece of furniture.
The ruggedness as well as the Microsoft brand has been one of the Surface's biggest selling points compared to other multi-touch tables. Ideum is the first vendor to claim their device is even more rugged.
At a price tag of $21,000.00 the device is a bit more than the Surface, which when purchased with developer seats, installation, and other fees comes out to $18,000.00. A non-developer version of Surface would probably run about $15,500.00. But the Ideum MT-50 is larger and higher resolution and allows developers to create applications in Adobe Flash and other languages (e.g. python and Java). Those are some significant advantages and would seem to justify the higher price tag in my opinion. That said, I've never developed applications for this device or even seen it in person so there is a lot about it that is still a mystery to me.
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