Latest headlines: Extron announces AV over IP system, Scott Tiner thinks AVaaS doesn’t make sense, keys to collaborative success, plus news from Christie and Zoom
September 24, 2018 | Volume: 9 | Issue: 9.2
There’s been a lot of talk of thing “as-a-Service” (aaS) over the years. Mark Coxon has talked about it here,here, here and here, Joel Rollins here and here, Christopher Jaynes here, and two other contributed pieces are here and here. And that’s just in our publication. Today Scott Tiner has another take — AVaaS may be a trendy buzzword, but he thinks it doesn’t actually make sense for integrators, or for certain buyers. Take a look and let us know what you think.
We also have a column from Dr. Fred Ampel about listening to your clients — it was originally written for our house of worship publication, but the message is a good one for any integrator that has clients.
One of the things that has struck me as I read about AVaaS is that every perspective I have read is from the integrator's point of view, or aimed at the integrator. The basic point is, you need to start creating new revenue streams and get away from the dying (dead?) revenue of box sales. The point is true, but simply making up new revenue streams does not mean they work or make sense. I have not yet seen one of these articles or presentations actually present a compelling case for the integrator.
It seems, based on the less-than-stellar outcomes of project after project thrashed out on industry forums, blogs, posts, groups and numerous other media/communication channels that we have almost made an art form out of NOT hearing our customers/clients.
Extron's new NAV Series distributes video, audio and USB 2.0 over standard Ethernet networks, including "visually lossless" video over IP at resolutions up to 4K@60Hz with 4:4:4 chroma sampling. Using Extron's own PURE3 codec, the system allow an IT department to "dial in" the amount of bandwidth the signals take up, from either 40 Mbps to 1 Gbps or from 40 Mbps to 10 Gbps (at any bandwidth in between), depending on which Extron NAV system is used.