Application News Profile Robin van Meeuwen marks 25-year anniversary with Crestron


Robin van Meeuwen, President and CEO at Crestron EMEA has steered the company through a spectacular period of growth and several paradigm shifts in tech- nology. Here is his story from the early days with a dozen staff serv- ing the UK market from the ‘boat shed’ in Kingston-upon-Thames.


AVN: We met very soon after AV News first launched in 2001. Cre- stron’s product catalogue was very different then?


RvM: In those days. the product line was mostly touchpanels and control systems. It wasn’t until 2008. when we launched Dig- ital Media that our sales really started to really take off. While had a range of analogue switch- ing devices. which were sending analogue signals over CAT 5, and we were selling a lot of that in the residential market we weren't re- ally well known in the commercial market, until we came out with Digital Media BD: that product introduced you to the networks and building in- frastructure that you would have to have as standard nowadays, but 20 years ago that would not necessarily be an obvious thing to do? RvM: When I look back on how the Digital Media product range evolved, it really was the first bridge between analogue and digital. You could put all your analogue signals in the box and transmit digital signals. You could


Advertorial


put your images into it as well, so it created that bridge between analogue and digital. We all know analogue signal has gone now, everything is digital, but at time it made a bridge between AV and IT. When Digital Media came out it was on a network, but it was a dedicated AV network, it was not the IT network.


The IT guys said: “No, we're not having that on our network - that’s an AV device.” Now the IT world has accepted former AV devices onto the IT environment, whether it be projectors, source equip- ment, switching and distribution equipment. They see and accept the ‘ITness’ of these products is robust enough and meet all the industry standards within the IT domain. Putting these products on the IT network so it is a lot more familiar today. They are not another third-party AV product. Crestron now delivers something they see matches the protocols of the IT domain AVN: So, once you'd established that you can send video over IP that is now the standard? If you were doing a new building today, that's what you would go for? RvM: Correct, it gives you that flexibility.


It makes you able to


manage it better. It makes total sense in today’s world. AVN: This change in technology coincided with the transforma- tion in terms of the applications people are using it for? I can't remember anybody talking about collaboration much five years ago, but now it seems all consuming?


Application News Creating solutions that surprise and delight the user


How to do this is a question we asked of Jon Knight, Commercial Di- rector of distributor Ascentae. He put his cards clearly on the table


“The ability to innovate and truly surprise and delight will usually come from software, not hardware. In most cases displays are just an end point and once you realise they are all big, bright, with clear image quality and precise touch, the question shifts to what soft- ware can be used.”


So how does an organisation like Ascentae go about identi- fying solutions that integrators can then take to their cus- tomers and hopefully


create


that delight? And what are the challenges that have to be ad- dressed?


“The first thing to understand is that one size does not fit all,” says Knight. “We see hardware vendors building, for example, digital signage software into their screens. But what hap- pens when the integrator visits a customer who has already invested heavily in alternative hardware or software? How can that solution work, be inte- grated and managed? Most es-


Nureva Span Workspace is another example of a hardware agnos- tic software platform that enables more bespoke requirements to be achieved in collaboration and signage without tying yourself to a spe- cific hardware vendor.


tates in business and education have a mixture of new and old hardware, often all running dif- ferent software solutions, add- ing to the complexity of what is a short-term view.”


Instead, Knight says he would recommend a software platform approach. Zoom is an example of this, as is Skype for Busi- ness but neither platform is good enough to satisfy every UC need let alone digital signage requirement. He highlights that there are still plenty of exam- ples in the market of features being added for demonstration/ sales purposes. But once in the real world, their application is limited. “In our discussions with users they say these stan- dard platforms work fine for ba- sic collaboration requirements but are not sufficient in all as- pects of their business, there is a definite need for more specialism.” Examples of spe- cialist signage needs that re- quire a more all-encompassing platform include room booking, multi-touch and non-interac- tive screens through to video walls.


One of the challenges is that the ‘one size fits all’ approach is often adopted by IT and AV departments.


They’ll make


a platform such as Skype for Business, available to every- one, and then install the same size screen in every room.


P8 AV News November 2018


From a management point of view, it’s an approach that’s easy to control and maintain - but it doesn’t take into account the differing needs of users, who will want flexibility in solu- tions and functionality that will support their own activities. Indeed, Knight is a big advo- cate of activity-based working where everything from furniture to technology is designed to


tion and data analytics, with the results being meaningful and trusted as they come from one single platform.


Good signage vendors are focusing on peripheral add- ons such as proximity sensors to trigger user experience and engagement. Knight cites an example


from the Ascentae


stable – the STiNO software platform, where proximity mar-


The STiNO software platform, where proximity marketing is one of the creative uses being implemented for users such as Orange


drive relevant, tailored content to a nearby display.


And the


system enables those key met- rics to be measured, tracking actions depending on product location, information displayed and so on. Nureva Span Workspace


is


support the task that teams will usually perform in the space. By adopting software plat- forms that run on any hard- ware, customers will find them so much easier to scale and manage. And there are added benefits. These software prod- ucts enable key metrics to be delivered, such as user adop-


keting is one of the creative uses being implemented for us- ers such as Orange. By using proximity sensors or lasers, the system can track a customer’s behaviour towards, and engage- ment with, an individual prod- uct. They may be approaching it, standing in front of it or picking it up. Different actions


another example of a hardware agnostic software platform that enables more bespoke re- quirements to be achieved in collaboration and signage with- out tying yourself to a specific hardware vendor. Whilst the software works fantastically with Nureva wall, the comple- mentary hardware that creates a huge canvas, it’s equally as accessible on a Smartphone. Such solutions support work- place culture changes too, for example BYOD. A cloud-based platform is pretty essential for this, otherwise you run into se- curity issues with the IT dept. Ultimately, concludes Knight, an experience that will truly surprise and delight should come from great, reliable hard- ware and software designed for the task it is intended to be used for. The job of integrators and consultants is to help de- fine this ultimate experience but a hardware agnostic soft- ware platform used across the business should drive adoption and deliver a fantastic user ex- perience.


RvM: Absolutely, collaboration is the hot word, and sometimes over used, but what does the term collaboration mean? Is it like this meeting, where we are talking together here? Is this a collabo- ration meeting? Yes, I'd see this as collaboration, but is the qual- ity that defines collaboration in terms of the technology about sharing data, graphs, ideas and creativity in a defined space in order to obtain better results? AVN: Collaboration has become integral to the design of a mod- ern office building. Crestron has now become a Microsoft partner. Microsoft has announced plans to do with Azure program, and the Internet of Things, what they have done with Windows and ap- plications. They hope to bring the Windows element and the Azure element together at some point which, is that something Crestron is part of? RvM: There is a very close work- ing relationship between Micro- soft and Crestron. We have de- veloped the hardware platform so that Microsoft can deploy their software platform – that’s what I see is the goal, a win-win for everyone. We do have all the re- quired tools, like Crestron Cloud Services so there’s going to be a lot more interesting ideas we can offer our customers, whether they be the integrator, or the end-user, for not only managing the system but also from the point of view of the integrator. Because there are so many regulations. the end-user will benefit in a very big way.


AVN: Can you give a specific ex- ample of how this might work? RvM:


It is already there with


tools like Crestron Fusion. You can monitor the room with mo- tion sensors or automatically shut down or start up with presets in the room. Energy management it a core part of building manage- ment rules. We can communicate and get data from the network. And each generation of the tech- nology is getting easier to use. That’s the key message. When you are putting 50, or 100 meet- ing rooms into a building, you want meetings to start straight- away - not waste time setting up devices. If 4 people are attending the meeting, and it takes 10 min- utes to set up the room. you have wasted 40 minutes of staff time. The more senior the staff, are the more costly it becomes. The Return on Investment is matter of months on meeting efficiency and cost saving technology. AVN: It’s fair to say that, over the last 25 years. Crestron has over- come, and even pioneered, some of the fundamental changes in AV / IT technology and is well placed for succeeding generations. But recent trends have seen software play an increasingly important role in AV / IT solutions, a trend which has made a material change to the systems integra- tor’s business model? RvM: We have seen a transition in the relative values of Crestron hardware and Crestron software. There have been some issues in building integrator’s understand-


ing of this transition. The value of the software to an end-user is tre- mendous. The integrator thinks it should be free because they are buying 50 rooms off you. Integra- tors need to understand the value of the license free. There has to be definable value in the service license fees to enable integrators to sell it on to their end-users to generate recurring revenues. The potential for the integrator here is tremendous. AVN: And is software licensing the core of the future for Cre- stron? RvM: 25 years ago, starting a relationship with a new customer was a very exciting time. Sleeping on the doorstop to win the busi- ness was very exciting. Establish- ing a relationship was very natu- ral, but today it’s different. I know all our AV customers personally, and most of the relationships go back more than 20 years. Now there is a new set influx of new partner large IT players, and I take pleasure in educating them, holding their hands as they be- came intrenched in the business with us. With this broader mar- ket available, measuring market share against what might be thought of as our direct competi- tors is no longer worthwhile: what concerns me is the Crestron per- centage marketshare against the total worldwide spend on AV.


Robin van Meeuwen: “We have seen a transition


in the relative values of Crestron hardware and Crestron software. There have been some issues in uilding integrator’s understanding of this transition.”


Robin van Meeuwen: “what con- cerns me is the Crestron percent- age marketshare against the to- tal worldwide spend on AV.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20