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Emerging Trends in the Projection
Industry
New Players
With companies like HP and Dell entering
the projector arena, look for some stiff competition and new rules of
the game. HP says with only two or three major PC companies playing
in the ultra-portable space, it plans to make an impact, and both these
companies will appeal to the PC market where they're well established.
The good news for competitors, however, is that this should bring more
buyers than ever into the overall projector market and promote the industry
has a whole. Industry watchers predict that the manufacturers that own
the core technology and are known for efficiency will survive, as others
fall away during the upcoming shakeout.
New Requirements
The industry has changed from box-based to system-based, affecting both
manufacturers and integrators, in terms of responsibility and expectations.
Customer service, including training and R&D, is becoming increasingly
important. And, systems integrators must now understand facility construction
and design, essentially becoming project mangers for the whole infrastructure.
Lots of money is invested in new headquarters and other facilities,
and the relative cost of AV can be quite low, despite the impact it
brings. Also, as wireless continues to gain favor, and products become
easier to interconnect, how will that affect integrators?
New Priorities
Digital signage is hot, with an expanding range of application possibilities.
Corporate and retail customers are combining advertising, marketing
and promotion budgets to use plasma and projection systems - sometimes
both in the same display system. Retailers are looking for new advertising
formats, but they're under extreme pressure to keep costs down. Early
adoption will most likely happen in spots that already have some sort
of dynamic display, like airports and stadiums. Many command and control
products are finding their way into the entertainment and signage arenas.
Part of the problem here is education. Corporate and advertising executives
who control the advertising budget don't get it yet. Much more work
needs to be done yet to make these decision makers aware of the technology,
its capabilities, benefits, and ROI.
Videoconferencing is another hot entity, becoming more mainstream, particularly
since September 11, as companies add conferencing to meeting and presentation
spaces to try to curtail business travel. There's a spike in demand
as the industry moves from switched networks to Internet Protocol (IP).
There were lots of RJ45 jacks on projectors at InfoComm this year.
Turnkey solutions are coming from companies like TeleSuite (Englewood,
OH) (www.telesuite.com). Its
videoconferencing rooms use projectors from NEC Solutions (Itasca,
IL) (www.nectech.com) to enable
meeting participants in to appear on walls 20 feet long and more than
5 feet high. In this arena, NEC is merely a components supplier since
projectors priced upwards of $7,500 are only a fraction of the cost
of a $250,000 TeleSuite room. And, videoconferencing is only a small
slice of NEC sales, but the company expects to do 50 installations this
year, compared to only seven last year.
Many high-end AV tools are moving beyond the traditional conference
room into company lobbies, network operations centers, and small meeting
rooms and work areas. Many videoconferencing systems are selling with
plasma screens. Plasmas are becoming a big part of integration projects,
partly because they can be put anywhere and hung at all different angles.
And, videowalls, which were traditionally found only in command and
control rooms, are showing up in corporate lobbies too.
Challenges remain here though in terms of making videoconferencing technology
more effective, reliable, and easier to use. More sophisticated file
sharing capability is required, but don't look for major changes to
the traditional systems; more likely will be a broader variety of application
solutions. - Stacy Moran
Insight Media, Annmarie Gabisch, 203-831-8464, Annmarie@insightmedia.info
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