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INTERVIEW: ETHAN WETZELL, BOSCH COMMUNICATIONS Appetite for interoperability


Bosch announced its OMNEO networking architecture last year, and launched its first OMNEO-based products this spring. Paddy Baker talked to its platform strategist to discuss interoperability, AVB and where it all goes from here


Why do you think it’s only in the past three years or so that interoperability between different manufacturers’ equipment has become a key area of development? That’s a really interesting question. Going back, some of the early precursors to this of course were technologies like CobraNet and EtherSound, and even things like AES3 were real attempts to push technology and begin to bring this interoperability into systems from different manufacturers.


I think the demand has come from a couple of different spots. Historically, manufacturers’ equipment used proprietary protocols with bits and pieces of interoperability, and that set in motion the desire to have something more uniform and more robust – from both the media transport side and the control side. People got a taste of what was possible and wanted more, but with fewer headaches.


The other thing that is


really driving this is the rapid expansion of highly integrated systems. As people have started to look at connectivity and really try to bring highly integrated, highly complex systems together, this has become more of a need. I think we’ve seen an interesting switch, where trends in the consumer market are beginning to drive trends in the professional market, whereas for many years it was the other way round. Consumers will pick up their iPhone and make it talk to their Xbox, TV, computer and even thermostat, so why can’t they have this in their professional system? Obviously it’s a much more complex equation to try to solve in the professional world, because of the increasing demands of reliability and security and the sheer scale of the devices we’re talking about.


When you say ‘rapid expansion of highly integrated systems’ do you mean systems with a high


14 June 2013


about what OMNEO means across our different brands. We have products in public address, conferencing, professional sound, intercoms – and we view OMNEO as the next step in integrating those different technologies. It’s an immediate value proposition for today, and a sound investment for tomorrow. For the industry at large –


we’ve always subscribed to the key tenet of embracing and adopting public standards. We believe that products should compete on their own merits, not on protocols – and we think the industry as a whole believes that too.


OMNEO combines Dante transport with OCA control – neither of which are Bosch’s own technologies, although Bosch is a partner in the OCA. Is there anything preventing another company from bringing out their own equivalent of OMNEO? Would it matter if they did? It’s worth making the point that OMNEO goes beyond pure Dante and pure OCA. For instance, it has encryption features on top of the baseline Dante/OCA functionality that add value but don’t prevent interoperability. But regarding those two


key components – we would love to see manufacturers implementing OCA, and we would love to see manufacturers


implementing Dante.


degree of integration, or large-scale systems, such as in stadiums? Both, actually! If we look at a traditional mixed-use installed system – it could be in a cruise ship, a stadium, a modern house of worship, a casino – traditionally all of the different systems that existed within those venues were their own self-contained sub-systems. You had the primary PA, the 70V paging and evac system, maybe you had local sub-systems for pro audio that would be in another room. There were all of these


different components, and they were all treated as really separate elements; for management reasons – people didn't have the means or the tools to try to tie them together – but also for complexity reasons – let’s keep them separate because we don't want the wrong people touching the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong way. We’re seeing the


advancement of media network architectures that allow people to come up with more creative and more


What’s your view of the end game here? Is there going to be one


protocol to rule them all, or will there always be different protocols for


integrated solutions. That’s a huge value-add. Also, for users, it makes the systems more efficient and easier to use.


How important is OMNEO for Bosch and for the industry as a whole? At Bosch, we’re very excited


different applications? We need to slice that question a few different ways.


First, in terms of media


transports, I think we are going to see technologies evolve towards using a common set of standards that will enable a common solution that will really push things towards a universal interoperability. This of


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‘We believe that products should compete on their own merits, not on protocols – and we think the industry as a whole believes that too’


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