DisplayLink serves various customers, including notebook OEMs, LCD monitor manufacturers, and PC accessory vendors.

Its technology is compatible with operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, Android, ChromeOS, and Linux.

[4][5] DisplayLink was founded in 2003 as Newnham Research by Dr. Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Martin King.

[8] In November 2006, Newnham Research renamed itself to DisplayLink, a name that allegedly better described their display connection technology.

This DL-1x5 family brought improved performance, an increase in maximum resolution to 2048x1152, and the integration of a DVI transmitter and video DAC.

[11] On November 17, 2009, DisplayLink announced their first Thin Client product based on their USB 2.0 virtual graphics technology, designed for Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server.

[13] At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2012, DisplayLink announced several products incorporating video and graphics over a USB 3.0 "SuperSpeed USB" connection, showing substantial improvements in performance, resolution support, and video quality.

[15] At CES in 2016, DisplayLink announced their latest docking chip, the DL-6000 series, to support dual 4Kp60 over USB 3.0.

The VGC software runs on a Windows, macOS, or Linux host PC and takes information from the graphics adapter, compresses the changes to the display from the last update, and sends it over any standard network including USB, Wireless USB, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi.

[23] It supports dual video outputs (DL-3900 and DL-3950) and integrated 5.1 audio and Gigabit Ethernet.

[27] The IC has been integrated into a number of portable USB displays from AOC, ASUS, and Taeseok.

Now you can use Microsoft Office, Google docs or any other productivity app on a desktop monitor with a keyboard and mouse.

A DisplayLink driver installer for Debian and Ubuntu-based Linux distributions (Elementary OS, Mint, Kali, Deepin, etc.)

[39] There was a DisplayLink-supported open source project called libdlo with the goal of bringing support to Linux and other platforms.

[41] An independent review published in 2011 determined that at the time, DisplayLink use led to significantly higher CPU utilization compared to displays connected by native video interfaces.

[citation needed] DisplayLink finally responded to this in August 2015 by releasing a binary driver for Ubuntu that supports all current USB 3.0 ICs.