ISE Day 3

January 31, 2013 - BlogSquad,

Wow. This show could be a week long and you still wouldn’t have the time to see everything.
But had a great morning, saw a number of great new products and demos, all of which are shown in detail at www.ravenowise.com.

Of particular note, I spent some time at Mitsubishi getting a detailed demo on what they have done with the Play-Out Composer system, and I must admit I was impressed.

Listen to my special edition Amsterdam podcast for more details, and my thoughts.

Off the record, I had dinner last night with a couple of senior officials from InfoComm International, who expressed that they were happy with the way the show was running, the a

ttendance… and the enthusiasm. I agree with them, this seems to be a vigorous market. The dealers I’ve talked with from several countries in the EU were upbeat – and more than that, perhaps it was a coincidence, but every one that I talked to was very comfortable with the idea of widely networked AV technology.

Some of the other differences I have noted here:

1. There are a lot of OEM/customization houses here, exhibiting. In the US. we have come to think of OEM as one companyre-labelling another’s product, or having a large-run customized version built for them, and it comes to them in a box with their logo already on it. There are a lot more smaller companies here, actually do small-run, hands on customization of an existing product. This used to be very common in the high-end residential equipment space, but here it extends more into Pro AV as well. You can see a number of them in video at our ISE website.

2. There are more large dealership organizations exhibiting than there are at InfoComm in the U.S. – in fact, what I think was possibly the best large-screen image I saw in the show was at the Lang stand. Lang is a large European Rental and Sales firm, based in Germany, and their stand was impressive, especially since it was not by a manufacturer but by an integrator and rental house. I’m going to make it a point to visit them next time I’m in Germany.

Anyway, I’m uploading a bunch of interviews and observations now – look for them in the special edition of “The Week” to be posted later today. Following that, I’ll have a show wrap-up edition with Gary and I to give you our closing thoughts before we fly for home.

All the best from Amsterdam,

JRR