The global LED videowall market achieved revenues of $5.7 billion last year, with year-on-year double digit growth expected out to 2023, according to a new worldwide industry report from Futuresource Consulting. As the U.S.-China trade war intensifies and political indications suggest a continuing period of punitive tariffs, Chinese companies are exploring ways to accelerate their […]

I participated in a unified communications panel at InfoComm about three years ago. It was a great panel with representation from companies like Cisco, Polycom, and (the now defunct) Tely Labs. I was the oddball of the bunch; promising the audience that a focus on software to improve proximate meetings was needed at least as […]

For years, my family has watched America’s Got Talent in the summer. It’s a great family show that can be funny, touching and amazing. There have been numerous acts that use some type of technology. A couple of weeks ago however, there was one that really stuck with me. It was Italian psychologists (Simona and […]

In my biweekly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry. In this post, we are profiling Dan Freeman. Here is his brief introduction.   Dan Freeman is the Owner and CEO of VDO360, a cutting edge visual communications products and services provider located in Seattle, […]

What did they say they wanted? More importantly what did you hear and finally, what do they really need? The answers to these key questions are the roadmap to winning the job, but more often than not, just finding the map is a huge issue in and of itself. As was discussed in the first […]

If you’re a movie fan, you’re well aware of the ongoing conflict often portrayed between humans and machines in a dystopian future. Think “West World,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Terminator,” “I, Robot” and “The Matrix.” I can’t help but wonder if these movies are so popular because they reflect our own personal experiences of the […]

In late June, Andrew Davis posted a blog entry here on rAVe in which he declared that “in 10 years or less, what was once the AV industry is going to be a be a footnote in the history of business technology.” In the post he made the argument that software will, essentially, take over […]

One of the regular conversations I have with my clients involves leveraging Customer Relationship Management – CRM – tools to retain and engage their existing customer base in order to keep them coming back to spend money. How exactly that should be done is a lengthy conversation. The fact that it should be done is […]

If you’ve been reading my blogs lately, you already know I’m a huge proponent of escalating the rate of evolution in our industry in order to best meet the needs of our customers and continue to be relevant. I’ve been promoting developing better business acumen and having earlier conversations with our customers on a deeper […]

If you read our industry press at all (and I hope you do) you will note large numbers of articles on two subjects: 1. The “Huddle Room” and 2. Drones When two subjects like these fascinate an industry, it is almost inevitable that they combine in some way. (I consider this the “you got peanut […]

With fresh eyes on amazing new products and services presented over the last few tradeshows (InfoComm, DSE, ISE) so far this year, the rAVe Agency has seen some truly remarkable technology coming out of the audiovisual (AV) industry. But while AV technology is undoubtedly impressive, the way AV products are promoted and advertised has mostly […]

Update: Please see below a response from Eiki to this story. Things took a turn for the worse on Friday as Eiki laid off another round of greatness, including their 15-year general manager, Steve Rubery, and, according to one source, 50% of their tech and sales support teams. In addition, their dealer network was notified […]

In my biweekly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry and in this post, we are profiling Gerald Abualy. Here is his brief introduction. Gerald Abualy is the CEO and Managing Director of Captus Systems, a leading Commercial Audio-Visual Design and Integration firm located in […]

By James Kirby Industry Analyst, Futuresource Consulting Yet further consolidation has hit the professional audio markets, with Biamp’s acquisition of the Community and Apart loudspeaker brands. This follows a consolidation trend which Futuresource has being reporting on for some time, with pro audio moving further away from the independent, family-run industry it once was. This announcement […]

It’s July 16th, the end of another Prime Day where Amazon, the online behemoth, is slated to do nearly $6 billion dollars in sales in just two days. Estimates show that Amazon accounts for anywhere from 38 to 49% of US eCommerce which gives them a commanding lead over second place eBay, which accounts for […]

Last week was an eventful one for Zoom. In less than twenty-four hours, we had: The revelation of multiple security vulnerabilities in the popular Zoom conferencing software A [now updated] defensive statement by Zoom, dismissing concerns related to same Public outcry A reversal of course and introduction of an immediate patch for one vulnerability and […]

By Paul Konikowski, CTS-D Last week was a big week for cybersecurity news pertaining to the audiovisual industry. Vulnerabilities in Zoom’s Mac desktop client were disclosed, hijacking flaws in Logitech’s Unifying USB dongles hit the mainstream and Draper, Inc. announced that its computer systems and communications networks were being held hostage by ransomware. Let’s take […]

In my biweekly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry and in this post, we are profiling Dave DiGirolamo. Here is his brief introduction. Dave DiGirolamo is the Director of Audio Video Systems at Building Infrastructure Group located in Virginia, USA. He is a Certified […]

Over the years I’ve been in this industry (this was my 33rd InfoComm — 34th annual show with InfoComm/AVIXA though as my first, back in 1987, the show was called COMTEC — before the name was changed to InfoComm in 1988), the show has evolved from a technology-based show to a product-based show and, more […]

In my biweekly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry. In this post, we are profiling Chris Bartram. Here is his brief introduction.   Chris Bartram is the Managing Director of Crystal Display Systems, Digital Electronic Display Specialists located in Dartford, United Kingdom. 1. Describe […]

“…software is eating the world.” — Marc Andreessen In 10 years or less, what was once the AV industry is going to be a be a footnote in the history of business technology, somewhere among the overhead projector and the fax machine. This hardware-centric industry we call home, this perpetual contest of who sells both […]

For those of you who don’t know me well, I am pretty active in networking with other AV professionals, technology managers, designers, content producers, etc  If there is one thing most of them agree on, it’s that doing a proper needs analysis is the only way to assure that our systems meet all of our […]

No other AV publication or agency produced as much content around InfoComm19 as rAVe. I mean, it wasn’t even close. Gary did a ton of pre-show interviews and previews, Johnny and Victoria ran the podcast booth on the show floor at the Peerless-AV booth and were booked day in and day out, and an army […]

See part one of Anthony’s Planned Obsolescence column here. Since planned obsolescence for pro AV gear harms sales, service contracts and product support, the future for the AV industry may be headed toward the “as a service” model borrowed from the software industry. Should there be standards for planned obsolescence? Even the IT industry, with […]

In my last article, I spoke of the need to design the spaces we deal with not by thinking about the tech stack, but instead from the perspective of an experience. But in order to do this, we need to understand WHOSE experience we are referring to. For the most part, when we design a […]

Every single person from NEC who was at InfoComm was busy. Not only did they have one of the biggest booths at the show but NEC Display products were all over the show floor in signage and collaboration partnerships and a couple of dozen NEC’ers showed up to run the First Annual AVIXA 5K race, […]

I’d be surprised if Epson’s real-time art exhibit inside their booth didn’t win an InfoComm 2019 award. I’m serious. But, even if you’re not into digital art, you’ll appreciate how they were projecting it off-axis at about 160-degrees — on fabric! It was stunning. But they also had the entire DSE booth inside the InfoComm […]

By the time I returned to my office after being at InfoComm all last week, I had a dozen or more emails or messages from people asking how we pulled-off the LG Booth tour. I was perplexed. How do I respond? With a camera and a mic? Ah, but I had misunderstood the question! LG, […]

In my biweekly blog series, I am highlighting some of the incredible people who work for the Audio Video Industry. In this post, we are profiling Hossam Al-kurdi. Here is his brief introduction. Hossam Al-kurdi works as an AV Pre-Sales and Design Manager at Site Technology, an Audio Visual Solutions Provider located in Abu Dhabi, […]

It’s called “pay-for-play” and it’s simply unethical — and even illegal in some industries. But in the 70+ year-old AV industry, it’s business as usual. Most of our industry’s awards are not real awards. Sure, manufacturers promote winning them as if they are. And, the magazines that dole them out pretend like they are, too. […]

5/30/2019 Rancho Santa Margarita, CA Every year, Phenomenal Industries introduces at least one new GAMECHANGING product before InfoComm, AV’s premier commercial trade show.  Last year, there was an explosion of activity around ShareChair, the revolutionary huddle room collaboration product that blurred the lines between technology and furniture to change the way we share information. It […]

A few weeks ago, I sat in on a meeting with the head of global real estate for an innovative company here in California. He was amazingly generous in sharing his strategy on how he approached developing properties for his company, and I took three pages of notes over that 20 minute period. I think […]