THIS IS A PROMOTED POST

Standardization is not a new concept, having been around for thousands of years. Yet, as I walked around InfoComm this year, I was still struck by our industry’s lack of cloud standardization. What the Indus civilizations understood over 4,000 years ago … we apparently haven’t quite internalized.

Even the term, in ProAV, takes on different meanings. Many of you who read this might even think, when I say standardization, I mean picking one manufacturer’s ecosystem and stick with it, for better or worse. However, in this case, I am writing about how we are here, today, at a fork in the proverbial AV road — and I’m hoping we pick the right direction. With CloudAV, will we standardize so we can use ONE pane-of-glass to manage and monitor everything in an AV system? If not, can you imagine what the desktop of your support expert’s monitor will look like trying to remotely manage 30 different AV products at the same time?

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of every single manufacturer in AV having its own bespoke cloud-management and/or monitoring platform. And, unless there is either standardization (or at the very least interoperability) between them, they will likely fail. No end user or system integrator wants to use multiple cloud solutions hosting an endless number of open browsers to manage every AV device; let’s be honest, I am not sure that any single company in our standards-free industry is large enough to offer a complete range of products and solutions.

So here we are, yet again, following the IT market rather than leading it. The infrastructure is there — in a sense — as we have network ports on nearly everything with a power supply, nowadays but not much to leverage IP’s true value.

What is needed is a single AV Cloud and AVaaS provider that can integrate with devices from all vendors.

What we need, and what I saw at InfoComm (as I predicted in this year’s Kayye’s Krystal Ball) is a vendor-agnostic cloud management platform, like what, so far, only Xyte is offering. In fact, if you look closely, the better cloud-based management solutions that have debuted so far in 2024 are actually using Xyte as its engine — they’re just white-labeling it to market ownership of it. To name a few: Planar’s WallDirector Cloud, Bose ControlSpace Cloud, AtlasIED’s Atmosphere Cloud, Legrand’s RackLink Cloud, Symetrix’s AV-Ops Center, WyreStorm’s Sygma Cloud Management and a plethora of others. Technically, its platform can tie together any and all third-party cloud platforms into one interoperable standard and even provide one, familiar cloud platform to manage anything you’d ever install.

So, why should manufacturers, system integrators and end users care? Simple. Xyte is the only platform that I’ve seen, thus far, that’s providing the cloud management and monitoring standardization we need — and setting the stage for true AVaaS.

Xyte is also what I would call a collaborative platform. Meaning, for the first time, system integrators can leverage the platform to support their customers and their devices — and charge for it! Think about it — coverage for everything that Planar, Bose, Atlas, Legrand, Avocor, Symetrix and others sell on the same platform — just imagine if there were already 100 companies?!? This is the true cloud management interoperability our industry needs to move into; services should be more than 10-20% of our businesses. One day, I see it being 40% and maybe even 50% of revenue!

The lack of standardization in AV has long been a thorn in the foot of our industry. With Xyte, there’s an opportunity to solve this going into the era of the cloud in AV; and maybe more options will eventually debut. But right now, only Xyte has an all-in-one approach. With collaborative cloud management and monitoring that integrates with a huge range of AV devices, Xyte offers interoperability — and maybe eventually standardization — for manufacturers, system integrators and end users alike.