Almo Professional A/V, a value-added distributor serving the needs of professional audiovisual integrators, dealers, and consultants, introduced its E4 AV Tour in New York City this past Tuesday. And though the business climate has been gloomy all year, spirits ran high and hopeful at this debut reseller training and networking event.
I traveled to Fort Lauderdale, Florida last week to check out AVAD 's "Vend-o-Palooza" training and product showcase event on November 12. It's been a whirlwind year for the Vend-o-Palooza traveling road show of vendor exhibits and training sessions, which were held at 20 of AVAD's 28 branch locations nationwide and
When exploring the issue of "who owns the code" for SCN's October cover story, the subject of independent programmers came up in several conversations. These professionals are of course the ones with a significant stake in this intellectual property debate, as the foundation of their business resides in the code they
On October 20, I was invited to tour Extron’s facility, along with the state-of-the-art Crestron Experience Center as the centerpiece of the day. Before the festivities for the grand opening of the Experience Center, our small group was given an intimate tour of the Crestron campus in Rockleigh, NJ. A portion of the
Cisco announced this morning that it is acquiring Tandberg, at a pretty hefty price tag of $3 billion. But according to Cisco Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers, who briefed the press this morning, that price is something of a bargain: "Collaboration is a $34 billion market and is growing rapidly—enabl
by Kirsten Nelson The nation is hearing that the worst is over and the economy has begun to pick itself up and dust itself off. It may be some time before those effects are felt by all who were knocked flat in the past year, but a look around our industry reveals that the stabilization began with companies who adju
New this year at the CEDIA show in Atlanta will be a rigorous new training course from DSEG–Alan and Jonathan Brawn will be doing the training in Atlanta... The DSCE Certification course will make its CEDIA debut, oriented toward CEDIA professionals and AV and IT systems integrators who wish to gain immersion in the
There was a comment made at InfoComm's Salt Lake City Regional Roundtable a couple of months ago pertaining to the slightly revised sales process that many integrators (and yes, manufacturers, too) have adopted in recent times: "We need to remind sales people how to sell, not just take the orders that have been rolling
When people talk about the impending convergence of AV and IT, they're forgetting one thing. "We're the 'I' in 'IT' -- we're the audio and video. We're the information," emphasized David Silberstein, national product sales specialist, at Crestron's Rockleigh, NJ headquarters last week. If Crestron's expanding Digita
This is an industry founded by self-proclaimed "tinkerers" whose favorite swag at trade shows is tiny screwdrivers -- or better yet, tiny screwdrivers with bright LED flashlights that make it possible to see tiny screws in dark equipment closets. So it's not entirely surprising that in good times and bad, the innovati
Probably the most interesting new application on view at InfoComm last week was one that has jumped from the consumer side to the commercial AV side of the fence: 3D, using just one projector. Big-gun 3D-ready projectors have been available from other manufacturers for the past couple years–Barco, Christie, Digital Pr
Like it or loathe it, 3D video is going to be hard to avoid at InfoComm 09. Even before the show has begun, the prospects for 3D were among the topics under discussion at Insight Media’s Projection Summit – the traditional curtain-raiser conference at which industry leaders discuss emerging video technologies and their likely impact on the way integrators do business.
Surveying the scene from my perch in front of my email inbox, I have noticed a significant increase in the number of press releases about office openings (see my previous post about The Sextant Group's new Washington, DC office), expansions, and mergers. There is significant growth occurring among consultants and in
The phrase "cautiously optimistic" has been bandied about quite a bit lately. For some, it masks turmoil, but for many, it is a modest way of saying "we're doing really well in a terrible time". It was with a measured precision and a hesitance to employ a cliché that Mark Valenti, president and CEO of The Sextant Grou
Even with its massive U.S. trade show just around the corner, InfoComm continued to reach out to its membership through its Regional Roundtables last week. Following a visit to Denver last Wednesday, the Roundtable team arrived in Salt Lake City for a session hosted at the Listen Technologies headquarters on Thurs
Pete Baker in RTI's Advanced Control University training roo I recently enjoyed a visit to my home state of Minnesota to take a tour of the Shakopee-based Remote Technologies Incorporated (RTI). It was great to be on familiar turf with a company that clearly exhibits a healthy