This story has been updated to add a letter sent to NEC Display partners and customers. Below is the official press release from NEC Display today. Before you read it, here are my thoughts: Unlike nearly every merger in our industry’s history, this is a new display company that will be made up of two […]
We’ve received many COVID-19 press releases — most of them self-serving. This one is NOT. Kudos to VuWall for offering this up. You don’t even have to have a VuWall system to use it (and it even works on a PC). VuWall is looking to partner with those who are on the front lines working […]
By Katye McGregor Bennett KMB Communications Focus on what CAN be done at a time like this, when the world slows and all are in a similar position. Things that you never have time for, that get de-prioritized because other, more pressing issues take the lead. Here are five things you can do to stay […]
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article that talked about protecting your staff from the current epidemic. A lot has changed. Obviously, the virus becoming a worldwide pandemic has thrown the industry into a tailspin. As an industry, we have spent a lot of time in the tailspin condition, as we are an […]
The Integrate expo that takes place each August in Australia, which was set to take place August 19-21 this year in Sydney, has been postponed, said show organizers in an announcement today. They are still planning to have a show in 2020 in Sydney and plan to have details on when and where within the […]
I was honored to be the only member of the AV press invited to cover the live, global (it was streamed live from Seattle, Washington, New York City, Amsterdam and Madrid) streaming video launch of the Sharp WCD (Windows Collaboration Display) last week. Although those in attendance, live, saw it as a technical marvel (connecting […]
I am sitting here in my kitchen table writing this. Like many of you who traveled last week, I am in a self-quarantine to protect the world from my potentially having the new coronavirus, sadly known as COVID-19 (sad as COVID used to only refer to that Tempe-based AV manufacturer known for the once-famous EXPiX […]
AVIXA CEO Dave Labuskes sent the following letter out to the AV industry today. My thoughts are below his letter. A Letter to the AV Industry I , as many of you, continue to watch the news on a moment-by-moment basis. As we are making decisions that affect our travel, business and family, I want […]
Digital Signage Expo, originally scheduled to be held in Las Vegas March 31 – April 3, 2020, has been postponed until later in the year, likely September, and also still in Las Vegas. This announcement seemed inevitable, perhaps overdue, particularly this week with the WHO declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, the Trump administration announcement […]
The show organizers of Enterprise Connect, the communications and collaborations show originally scheduled to be held later this month in Orlando, told exhibitors today that the show has been rescheduled for August 3-6, 2020, and will now take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This is due to the travel restrictions and uncertainty […]
Marlin Equity Partners is merging videoconferencing provider Lifesize and Serenova, a contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) provider. Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm with over $6.7 billion of capital under management, is the financial sponsor of the merger and will continue to invest and support the growth of the combined business to address the $60 billion […]
Updated: May 28, 2020 Most (and now, as of late May, pretty much all) industry events past Q1 2020 have shifted or changed in light of COVID-19. We pulled together a list of AV or related events and trade shows on our radar, and included their event statuses to date. If you are a vendor/show […]
Welcome to my 20th Kayye’s Krystal Ball! I know, I was shocked too. Twenty years of this. But I love writing this annual predictions article. If you’re a regular reader, you already know this, but for those who don’t, my Kayye’s Krystal Ball piece is an annual article where I not only tell you what […]
Disclaimer: This is one of those topics that seems to require periodic reminders and refreshers. Why this is the case is one of the great mysteries of the AV life, but we seem to lose sight of the core principals reasonably regularly, and thus — the following is your scheduled reminder that the foundational rules […]
While the coronavirus certainly decimated attendance at Integrated Systems Europe 2020 — coming in right at around 52,000 attendees — exhibitors were thrilled with those who showed. NOT ONE exhibitor complained to me. Quantity was down, but the quality was up. Way up. This actually could have been the best thing ever to happen to […]
On the third day of ISE last week, with little fanfare, Barco announced its 2019 earnings report while also commenting on how they think 2020 will play out. As we have very few publicly traded companies of this magnitude in the commercial AV space, I always appreciate Barco’s earnings report as it’s become a bellwether […]
In December, I was a panelist for a session of the HETMA conference. I can not recall the exact conversation that led to us discussing getting cold calls from vendors. Several of us who are “customers” replied how much we dislike getting the cold calls or emails. What struck me most about the conversation and […]
By Aviad Cohen Founder, Comeet I’ve been a fan of AV-over-IP ever since I first worked with the technology — but the number of vendors and different solutions out in the market make it very hard for customers to choose. How could an AV investment be protected if there is no standard? You can be […]
Oregon-based Biamp will announce at ISE 2020 here in Amsterdam, that it has purchased Huddle Room Technology (HRT). In case you haven’t heard of HRT, it makes a wireless sharing and collaboration product (think Barco ClickShare) but its version includes wireless USB, as well (think Barco ClickShare Conference). However, the HRT HuddleHub has one wireless sharing […]
At ISE 2020 in Amsterdam in stand 15-B250, the Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) ProAV Working Group introduced Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX), a set of open standards and specifications designed to enable carriage of compressed and uncompressed video, audio and data over IP networks. IPMX addresses the ProAV industry’s need for a single […]
AV marketing professionals spend countless hours pursuing more reader likes, more engagement, more content, more metrics and frankly more of the same in a never-ending hype cycle. Social media is merely another function where marketers are stuck in tactical due to feeling the pressure to produce something — anything — in order to somehow drive […]
In a deal that is incredibly strategic for Midwich, the UK-based company announced this week that it’s purchased ProAV distributor Starin, headquartered in Chesterton, Indiana. Starin had revenue of about $200 million in 2019. Although the official announcement didn’t say how much Midwich paid for Starin, rAVe has learned the deal is worth under $50 million. […]
UC Workspace’s new UCC product is called WEAV; more information is near the bottom of this product announcement but read this first to understand its positioning. UC Workspace jumped on the scene a few years ago with a universal UX for all collaboration boards. Called Quicklaunch, it’s the maiden product of UC Workspace that allows […]
Like most folks out there, I spent many years not understanding what UX (User eXperience) was and, more importantly, what the difference between UI (User Interface) and UX was. Over time I came to realize that what was being commonly delivered as a UI in the AV world did not translate to good customer experience. […]
AVI-SPL and Whitlock have jointly announced an intention to merge (technically, it’s a “definitive agreement to merge”) — both will be held by portfolio company, Marlin Equity Partners (a global investment firm with over $6.7 billion of capital under management). As you likely know, this means the second-largest AV integration firm is merging with the third-largest — jointly creating […]
By Futuresource Consulting As the ProAV sector gears up for ISE 2020, opening its doors in just a few short weeks, Futuresource Consulting identifies the key trends and technologies likely to emerge from the world’s largest exhibition for AV and systems integration professionals. Brought to you by the professional AV team at Futuresource, this pre-show […]
Help me! How do I ? Where do I? These and a lot of similar questions were the core of the responses we gathered during and after the seminar session on “How to Source and Purchase Equipment for a HOW AV System,” presented during the WFX Conference & Expo in September 2019, held in Orlando, […]
By: Morgan Alley Account Manager, Almo Professional A/V We millennials sure love to ruin everything, don’t we? First, we came in with participation trophies, we moved on to tank the economy and now we have come for sports! *Queue diabolical laughter* According to this Reuter’s article, global esports revenues will rise above one billion dollars by […]
Each level of the classic Mario game would end with our hero having battled through hoards of foes to rescue his beloved, only to be greeted with the now-familiar message that his princess is in another castle. The inherent sexism of the princess-rescue trope aside, this is what I think when I look at the […]
At the turn of every year, I often think of blogging about the big stories or products of the past year, or the promising products of the coming year. I have never written about my resolution for the new year, as they are often personal and not business- or AV-related. However, this year is different. […]
For this article, I wanted to step away from AV and all that fun stuff and talk about a far bigger issue, which is communications. One thing that became very clear to me very quickly when I moved from being a long term “AV guy” to being an end user is that we have some […]
A couple months ago, I saw a post from Liberty AV on social media. It showed a picture of a device that seemed to wirelessly share a laptop to a larger display. There are a lot of devices that allow someone to share their screen wirelessly to a display — Barco ClickShare, Crestron Air Media, […]
