2017 review 2017: the year in review


How was your 2017? For many in the channel, it was a year of consol- idation but with a refreshing dose of innovation. ‘Collaboration’ was undoubtedly the word of the year – and the technology of the year, perhaps only rivalled by 4K. Here are our highlights of 2017, see if you agree.


January 2017


We started the year with a good deal of optimism, saying in our annual preview piece: “Last year was great for innovation in AV and related industries and 2017 has the potential to be even better. With the IT and CE majors now taking AV seriously, the goal of ‘AV everywhere’ isn’t so far away.” Inspiring that op- timism was a study released by Technavio, showing that the global retail display market was expected to grow at a CAGR of almost 16% between 2017 and 2021. Voice was expected to try to become the primary user interface for the smart


home and connected lifestyle. CE manufacturers were pre- dicted to focus on new product categories and ecosystem strat- egies to compensate for stag- nation in mature markets. And virtual and augmented reality will grow their foothold in niche operations and generate greater awareness among early adopt- ers, creating opportunities for social VR experiences. All true, in par, yet as the year pro- gressed it didn’t seem to quite match up to this early promise – consolidation became the order of the day. But, luckily, there were a few exceptions.


March 2017


This was the month when we reported that ISE, held the previous month had seen its attendance climb over 73,000. March also saw the release of the


Futuresource report that


confirmed the long-awaited move by the corporates into the Ifpd market. The report said that 1 million Interactive Flat Panel Displays were sold in 2016 globally, a 14% increase. The long-anticipated demand from the corporate sector is starting to impact, boosted by new market


entrants


date, the opportunity is “signif- icant”. It certainly is: collabora- tion has been the buzzword for 2017. To underline the point, we published the transcript of Nancy Knowlton’s Keynote Address to the 2017 AV News Awards Presentation Ceremo- ny, “Developing the market for innovative business technolo- gies.” Nancy and the co-found- er of SMART Technologies Dave Martin also picked up an AV News Award for an Outstanding Achievement in AV.


Micro-


soft, Google and Cisco. With an almost untapped market of 32 million corporate meeting rooms globally and well under one million displays installed to


2017 AV News Outstanding Achievement Award Winners Nancy Knowlton and Dave Martin.


Context aware digital signage at the perennially impressive MEC Solu- tions Showcase.


June 2017


Retail digital signage: a case for optimism. February 2017


One of these must surely be the rise-and-rise of the Mid- wich Group, which announced a better than expected profits forecast. The Board expected to announce revenues of 370 million for 2016, represent- ing growth of 18% over the previous year. Also on the dis- tribution front, Nigel Steljes announced a new distribution venture called Ascentae. He said: “I established Avocor in June 2016 as a vendor brand with a clear remit to


create


and develop market-leading technologies. However, due to my longstanding relationships with Nureva and SMS, I made the decision in the short-term that Avocor would carry these brands I their portfolio, acting as a hybrid distributor. My in- tention was also to build a spe- cialist distribution company, separate from Avocor, to rep- resent these brands in the UK and I am absolutely thrilled to announce Ascentae to the AV market.” We also announced 2017 as the “Year of the Agile Workspace” – a year or two too early perhaps? – and comment- ed that the bid IT firms were making their move on educa- tion – perhaps a year or two too


late?. Mind you, we were right on the money with our feature: “What do you need for a huddle space?”


April 2017


Remember all that innova- tion we promised for 2017? ABI published encouraging research on AR and the enter- prise video training and edu- cation market (which will con- tinue to grow at a nearly 10% CAGR while video marketing systems will exceed a 20% CAGR). Lifesize announced a new addition to its cloud-based Lifesize application. Called Lifesize Live Stream, the new capability was described as a simple, flexible and secure solution


to stream company


meetings, executive updates, training sessions live and with high-definition, at broadcast quality. And we described HaaS


(Hardware-as-a-service)


Nigel Steljes – back in distribu- tion with Ascentae.


as “today’s provision model”. We said that : “The realisation is gradually spreading that that the use of obsolete technology can be even more costly, espe- cially to a small or mid-sized


May 2017


Hey, and what about that con- solidation? In the early days of summer, cuspidation came to call on UK distribution. Exertis announced that it had complet- ed the integration of Medium


UK Ltd and had rebranded its AV division as Exertis Medium. Medium was acquired by Exer- tis in the previous November. Exertis Medium combines both vendor portfolio’s and employee


organization. It can lead to poor productivity, lower revenue and lost data. HaaS is essentially with a package of maintenance and support services, combined with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) from a managed services provider that covers all aspects of technology provision, often including substitution of hard- ware when a new generation becomes available.” AV News also considered how the collab- oration trend had impacted on education. The conclusions are pretty far-reaching: “72% of education professionals believe teachers are performing the leading role in education today, but only 40% believe this will still be the case in 2025. Fur- thermore, 53% of education professionals believe real-time video collaboration and mo- bile devices will be the primary ways students engage with con- tent by 2025.”


More consolidation this month. RedstoneConnect announced that it had acquired the en- tire issued share capital of Easter Road Holdings Limited and its subsidiary, Anders + Kern U.K. Limited. Anders + Kern (A+K) is an established distributor and integrator of meeting room booking systems and audio-visual solutions. In the same month, Sahara Pre- sentations Group acquired the well-known Sedao software suite. Founded in 2004, Sed- ao developed a wide range of digital signage products and cloud-based solutions. These include solutions developed in collaboration with: Transport for London; EDF Energy; the NHS; Honda; National Muse- um of Wales; Rolls Royce; and Punch Taverns. Meanwhile, the bigger were doing better: DCC Technology,


better known in


the channel as Exertis or Ex- ertis Medium published strong


July 2017


2017 was the year that 4K displays entered the AV main- stream. In fact, in July, Sony claimed to be the only B2B manufacturer to move com- pletely to 4K for its latest range of professional displays. Sony’s new line-up of nine XE8 and XE9 4K HDR BRAVIA Pro- fessional Displays, was said to provide “ultimate picture qual- ity with the best professional features”. Sony cited research that shows that the largest market share for 4K B2B dis- plays in Europe. Where previ- ously. price has been a barrier to moving to 4K, Sony priced all its new XE8 models at the same price as the now discon- tinued Full HD models. Else- where, Samsung’s InfoComm presentation included its quantum dot-powered display technology HDR10+ QLED dig-


ital signage displays. Support- ed by the Tizen 3.0 OS, QLED Signage displays amplify High Dynamic Range (HDR)-quality content at a peak brightness of 1,500 nits with UHD reso- lution in 55-inch and 65-inch variations. Collaboration wasn’t far from the top of the agenda. Prysm announced new reve- nue opportunities for partners, bringing to market an offering that turns “any meeting room into an advanced collabora- tion space”. The Prysm En- gage Partner Program provides members with the technology and educational tools to deliver an “exemplary collaboration ex- perience” for customers, capi- talising on the full range of the


end-of-year results earlier this month. Operating profits grew 17.1% (12.5% on a constant currency basis), reflecting or- ganic profit growth in the UK and Ireland and the benefit of the acquisitions of Hammer and CUC completed in the current and prior year respec- tively. Perhaps unsurprisingly, DCC Technology announced its intentions to acquire new targets to “boost momentum in the existing organic grow in its operating margins”. The distributors’ acquisitions fo- cus is concentrated on targets with the potential to add value to


their technology offering,


usually through services such as integration, service and support. UC Exo proved that touchscreens were on their way to the corporate market. And if you didn’t know what ‘capaci- tive; meant before you almost certainly do now.


expertise from the two organi- sations, to provide a compre- hensive AV portfolio. With In- foComm on the horizon, it also became clear that the future


of projection was solid state. Innovation continued with con- text aware digital signage at the perennially impressive NEC Solutions Showcase.


Continued on Pg 8


P6 AV News January 2018


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