I came across a good article from Pro AV Magazine this morning which covers many of the issues involved in selling and fulfilling a digital signage project. As the article suggests, digital signage is cretainly a growing wave in the A/V world, but it still remains little understood.
I suppose that any technology in it's beginning stage should expect to have some confusion populated in the marketplace. It is not that we don't have knowledgable professionals working hard to ensure education of the market happens, but the speed with which changes are taking place within the digital signage industry. Our application has had 7 new releases in 2006 and we're expecting 2 more before the end of the year. The challenge of keeping just employees up to date on that type of change is daunting enough. Now take that example and multiply it by the mountain of competitors which exist or are entering the space and it becomes clear that the digital signage industry has it's hands full as we grow.
The good news is we don't have to look too far in the past to see examples of this scenario. I compare it to the telecommunications industry in the late 1990's. Back then, equipment and capabilities changed so quickly, it was possible to quote a solution one way and 3 weeks later have a totally different approach available for the same customer. Then the challenge became to determine which one best suited the requirements of the customer and deciding if the introduction of a new solution would add vvalue or cause confusion on the part of the customer. In the end, some telecommunications providers would suggest the newest solution and others would go with what they knew. It was very possible for an IT professional to face a decision to go with the newest (but unknown) or the standard (but possibly less effective) solution. The problem was, the decision they made also controlled their job stability.
I don't think Digital Signage has quite reached the now ubiquitous critical nature of internet connectivity and dial tone but I'm not sure we are far away from that. As more installations such as the one described in the Pro AV Magazine ( University of Tennessee's Football Hall of Fame) take place we may start to face the same issues on a bigger scale than they exist today.
Click here to find the article written by Mike White of Multimedia Solutions
