This past week, many industry professionals and end users attended InfoComm Connections in New York’s Jacob Javits Center where certain industry manufacturers exhibited. Co-located with NAB CCW (now NAB Show New York), the statement put out by the industry organization was as follows:
We realize that not everyone has the time or budget to attend InfoComm each year, so we decided to grab a slice of the big show and take it on the road for a two-day jam-packed event! InfoComm Connections is all about connecting AV professionals like you, to some of the top companies in the industry. We also offer technology managers and in-house AV pros a full day of the high caliber InfoComm University™ courses you’d find at the annual InfoComm June show, plus focused education sessions on unified communications and collaboration and AV for higher education.
There were education sessions and workshops which went on throughout both days, some of which I will detail here and I was able to attend a few of them. Joseph D. Cornwall, CTS-D, ISF-C, Technology Evangelist, Legrand was one of the many speakers at the event – he presented The Evolution of Digital AV Connectivity – Past, Present and Future.
Industry manufacturer Prysm, showing their Cascade collaboration solution had a nice gathering around their booth on Day 2:
Numerous exhibitors appeared at the event – here is information on the companies, solutions that were displayed and more:
Aurora: Aurora’s IPBaseT™ technology combines 4K uncompressed video with zero-latency seamless switching, video wall and multiviewer modes, digital audio, USB 2.0, Ethernet, and control. Utilizing the bandwidth of a standard 10G copper or fiber network, IPBaseT supports a large, seamless UHD video and audio matrix, and it does so while replacing multiple technologies and products with a single-box distributed platform. According to Aurora, the days of needing a separate AV switcher, control system, video-wall processor, audio/DSP converter, and more are a thing of the past.
AVI-SPL: Audio visual industry integrator AVI-SPL showed off the Microsoft Surface Hub in their booth at InfoComm Connections. Through their strategic partnership, AVI-SPL and Microsoft are working to improve the way organizations operate by giving them the tools to work smarter – fostering workplace transformation for the way the enterprise chooses to work today and tomorrow.
“AVI-SPL has demonstrated the Surface Hub to C levels, IT managers, and key decision makers across all verticals. Once they see it live and interact with the device, they are amazed how it conceivably has an answer to every solution. From there, they immediately begin to express how it can help their organization operate.”
Cisco: Sam Chon, Business Development Manager at Cisco Systems was the moderator for a workshop Is Travel Optimization as a Technology Investment Justification Getting Old? Think Again! along with Howard Brooks, Global Travel Director, McKesson and Wendy Prewitt, Vice President of Business Development, BCD Travelwith the description:
Travel reduction has long been the primary business justification used case for the deployment of unified communications and collaborations technologies. While many users have instances and anecdotes of savings from the use of collaboration, a sustainable set of self-perpetuating business process and metrics that support this claim has not existed. In this workshop, you will meet with global corporate travel leaders and representatives from leading travel management companies to identify specific challenges and business processes to link corporate travel expense and collaboration technologies. Learn how to build a repeatable business model that your organization can adapt which links IT investments directly to corporate procurement and finance.
ClearOne: ClearOne is a global company that designs, develops and sells conferencing, collaboration, streaming and digital signage solutions for voice and visual communications. Performance and simplicity of its advanced comprehensive solutions offer unprecedented levels of functionality, reliability and scalability. As a market leader, ClearOne is focused on developing cutting-edge conferencing and collaboration products.
DisplayNote: Montage is a wireless collaboration hub for modern workspaces – it allows the information from up to 12 attendee device screens to be displayed simultaneously on a main meeting room screen. 
Any attendee can make themselves active display (full screen/main focus) and one can take remote control of a connecting PC from the main display. Annotation is available both for attendees and on the main display. Montage comes with file-sharing from the montage unit to connecting PCs and from PC to PC, which means attendees can share docs, images, slides etc without the need for email and/or uploading to cloud storage providers. All data is communicated over TLS and DTLS.
FSR: Well known for being a top provider of infrastructure solutions in the industry, FSR announced at InfoComm Connections their strategic partnership with Connectrac. FSR+ Connectrac is a full line of In-Carpet and On-Floor wireways for applications where the client cannot core the floor for standard floor boxes or poke-thru’s. 
FSR also showed their new Mini-VU collaboration table which is the latest addition to their extensive line of HuddleVU Collaboration Solutions. FSR’s line of HuddleVU furniture is designed expressly for collaboration and to seamlessly integrate our full line of HuddleVU solutions. Stock models are available in nine (9) different finishes or can be customized with any of the hundreds of laminates Wilsonart offers. All tables are constructed of solid wood composite and finished with versatile, exclusive, high quality Wilsonart Laminates making them dramatically more durable.The integrated cable management also adds to the elegance of these units by eliminating unsightly cabling. FSR HuddleVU Furniture provides an economical collaboration solution for education, corporate, and healthcare environments.
Harman: Harman Professional was in attendance with the largest InfoComm Connections booth – the newly created Commercial, Education and Government (CEG) business unit, which reflects Harman’s customer solution focus, showed products from the AKG, AMX (including SVSI), BSS, Crown and JBL brands. The combined Harman portfolio now allows a single vendor solution for complete AV processing, distribution, control, scheduling and management across the enterprise. 
Harman had an emphasis on security for AV systems, talking about their enhanced security features which will be rolled out as firmware updates to their existing product line. Paul Zielie, CTS-D, CTS-I, Manager, Enterprise Solutions at Harman Professional, who was the speaker at Networked AV and Security — What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You workshop (which I was able to attend) stated:
“It is no longer acceptable to the enterprise customer to treat AV as a special case in security or to isolate AV applications from the enterprise network. We have set our goals to be compliant with the most stringent security policies using the same tools and techniques employed by IT organizations to secure the rest of their assets.”
My pre-show talk with Paul on his session: An InfoComm Connections Discussion with Paul Zielie of Harman Professional.
Jupiter: My #1 disruptive solutions pick at InfoComm in June, Canvas from Jupiter Systems allows you to see and engage every corner of the enterprise, from anywhere, on any device. Sharing a common operating picture is essential to effective management.
End-to-end collaboration with Canvas means more than just co-viewing, it means getting real work done. Canvas allows users to annotate directly on live video streams, share whiteboards, and coordinate using text and voice chat. With Canvas, smartphones and tablets can also be sources.
To be continued.