June 2009

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May 2009

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June 2009

For complete article, click here

May 2009

For complete article, click here

June 8, 2009

I’m always a little skeptical when a hardware company tries its hand at software. Too often, the results seem like home-grown reinventions of the proverbial wheel. So when LCD-maker Westinghouse Digital first introduced the neonNow and neonSource digital signage software products last year, my first thought was, “Here we go again.” Yet I came away from an initial demonstration pleasantly surprised and eager to take a closer look.

Westinghouse Digital Electronics is now shipping both neon software products, along with a proprietary hardware neonPlayer, which are available bundled with specific LCD models as turnkey digital signage solutions and as standalone digital signage creation tools ($799 for each software application, $1,699 for the neonPlayer). Both applications fill an important niche as digital signage proliferates toward broader usage. For the most part, Westinghouse has a good start building its own, even if these new wheels aren’t perfectly round quite yet.

NeonNow and neonSource were originally designed to help jump-start the full-of-promise digital signage business. They were created to help Westinghouse take advantage of emerging interest in digital signage in order to sell more LCD panels. The objective for both applications was to create easy-to-use tools that would allow everyday business professionals—that is, those who are not creative design professionals—to build and update handsome digital signage messages and playlists.

NEONNOW

NeonNow is the more intuitive of the two applications, with a straightforward point-and-click approach that puts everything in front of the user. A preview window occupies the right side of the interface, while the left side essentially toggles between two different views.

The first of these views is the content library, which includes several design templates or backgrounds to which you can add text. Like typical PowerPoint slides, each has a larger header/title-text area and a body-text area. Click on one, and it automatically appears in the preview window. Type new text in the editor boxes, and your text immediately shows up in the same preview. NeonNow automatically, elegantly fades in background then text.

Your own logos, images, and videos populate the content-frame area, and clicking on any of these puts it in the preview window. Duration pulldown menus for hours, minutes, and seconds allow you to set the timing for each slide or image independently. Click the big green check box with anything in the preview window, and the interface mode changes with your new slide, image, or video already in the Content Wheel or timeline.

It’s called a wheel because it’s a vertically descending list of content with a browser-like scroll bar along the right side so you can spin and see your list, with text and duration for each clearly visible. You can toggle content up and down in the timeline to reorder, and when you’re satisfied, all you do is hit play. NeonNow takes over the full screen and plays your digital signage material. It’s that simple. What’s more, neonNow can be set to play content on a panel in landscape or portrait orientation.

NEONSOURCE

Surprisingly, neonNow and neonSource are being developed by two separate design teams. There are a few superficial similarities in icons, but very little apparent effort to create a product family, and that’s too bad. NeonSource’s functionality goes beyond that of neonNow, and it could be a logical stepping stone as users become more sophisticated.

The most important difference with neonSource is MosaicView, which adds multiple-pane and text-overlay support. Admittedly, there are just two splitpane layouts from which to choose—a vertical banner either left or right—in addition to a full-window option, but you can add overlay text along the top, bottom, or either side of the image. A text editor allows you to slide the text in from any direction, although oddly, it cannot crawl all the way across the screen, meaning the messages have to be short or they will be cut off.

NeonSource’s timeline is a more traditional horizontal presentation, displaying the sequence order and total time (you can click on each slide or video to see its own duration in an information box in the upper-right corner of the interface). Here, you can reorder content by simply dragging and dropping. Adding new content is as easy as clicking on one of four content-type buttons, then choosing an image, text overlay, video clip, or a live video feed from the content library. It’s that last option that gives neonSource its name, and it’s a very flexible feature for signage that’s constantly running in a waiting room or public gathering place, for example.

On the other hand, there is no neonNow text editor in neonSource. You can import any kind of graphics, including text-based JPEGs of PowerPoint slides, but this is an area where the two development teams need to work together. Westinghouse says it plans to add more text support into neonSource in an upcoming release.

There are a few other caveats. Westinghouse Digital deserves kudos for keeping things simple, yet history shows that keeping it simple can’t mean keeping it under-featured. NeonNow needs basic font selection, and neonSource has bugs in its titling. Both need an easier way to import content and templates and, more importantly, a way to manage content. The simple scrolls are great, but after a month of adding new messages and images, those scrolls and unordered searches will get frustrating. NeonNow needs to either do a better job of resizing imported images or give users very specific instructions on sizes and formats of what can and cannot be used. Or both. Users should also be able to save projects and timelines so users can play ahead or have a weekend sequence that’s different from the weekday one.

Still, both products are usable now for basic digital signage messaging in a manner that appears very professional. With Westinghouse Digital planning to add many of the above features, as well as remote administration support, one can expect to grow as these tools do. Ultimately, they both fill a much-needed niche as digital signage reaches a broader audience. Admittedly, the cost of each feels like early pricing that will in time become discounted, yet it’s a small part of a digital signage infrastructure. And of course, Westinghouse Digital can deliver the entire solution and probably bundle the software at a pretty good price.

May 19, 2009

USA - Westinghouse Digital Electronics ( http://www.westinghousedigital.com ) introduced a powerful and cost-effective way for car washes to educate and up-sell customers: The Car Wash Display. The self-contained system includes all of the hardware, software and simple-to-use content needed to easily create compelling ads and promos.

The Westinghouse Car Wash Display is a unique solution that provides car wash customers with the latest product information and the day’s best deals while they wait in line before making their purchase. It is a great way for car washes to inform customers of the newest products and services available.  

Sold exclusively via SONNY’s Car Wash Factory, the Westinghouse Car Wash Display solution includes an all-weather one-sided 19” Westinghouse Digital LCD screen and stand; Westinghouse’s proprietary neonSource™ software for easy creation of ads and promotional messages; and car wash related advertising content by Bclip Productions. The all-in-one solution comes loaded with ads and product demos but can be easily customized so car wash stations can display their own content.

Rey Roque, Vice President of Marketing at Westinghouse Digital Electronics, said, “Small to medium businesses like car washes need all the edge they can get to succeed in today’s economy and our PumpTop Topper is already a proven solution at thousands of gas stations and convenience stores across the country. Westinghouse’s full suite of cost-effective, out-of-home digital signage solutions — which includes hardware and software to meet the needs of all kinds of businesses and environments — offer a very powerful way to drive sales by reaching customers when they are in purchase mode. “

Westinghouse’s new Car Wash Display features the LCD screen, pre-loaded content and the company’s proprietary neonSource software. neonSource is digital signage software that allows businesses to advertise their latest product solutions, informational messages, daily specials, and promotional launches throughout the day on a timed schedule.

neonSource displays current broadcast/satellite/cable TV or pre-recorded video while inserting banner ads along the top and bottom of the screen. The programming remains uninterrupted as the ads are dynamically inserted around it on the sides, top and bottom of the screen.

May 23, 2009

http://www.aka.tv/articles/article.asp?ArticleID=2260

May 26, 2009

SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif. — Westinghouse Digital Electronics, a provider of digital signage displays for gas stations and convenience stores, has introduced a way for car washes to educate and upsell customers, The Car Wash Display. The self-contained system includes all of the hardware, software and simple-to-use content needed to easily create compelling ads and promos. The Westinghouse Car Wash Display provides car wash customers with the latest product information and the day’s best deals while they wait in line before making their purchase. It helps car washes inform customers of the newest products and services available.

Sold exclusively via SONNY’s Car Wash Factory, the Westinghouse Car Wash Display solution includes an all-weather one-sided 19-inch Westinghouse Digital LCD screen and stand; Westinghouse’s proprietary neonSource software for creation of ads and promotional messages; and car wash-related advertising content by Bclip Productions. The all-in-one solution comes loaded with ads and product demos but can be customized so car wash stations can display their own content.

Rey Roque, vice president of marketing at Westinghouse Digital Electronics, said, “Small to medium businesses like car washes need all the edge they can get to succeed in today’s economy, and our PumpTop Topper is already a proven solution at thousands of gas stations and convenience stores across the country. Westinghouse’s full suite of cost-effective, out-of-home digital signage solutions—which includes hardware and software to meet the needs of all kinds of businesses and environments—offer a very powerful way to drive sales by reaching customers when they are in purchase mode.”

Westinghouse’s new Car Wash Display features the LCD screen, pre-loaded content and the company’s proprietary neonSource software. neonSource is digital signage software that allows businesses to advertise their latest product solutions, informational messages, daily specials and promotional launches throughout the day on a timed schedule. neonSource displays current broadcast/satellite/cable TV or prerecorded video while inserting banner ads along the top and bottom of the screen. The programming remains uninterrupted as the ads are dynamically inserted around it on the sides, top and bottom of the screen.

Westinghouse Digital Electronics is a leading U.S. LCD TV manufacturer. The company offers a complete suite of LCD displays for the professional and consumer markets as well as LCD-based consumer electronic products that deliver the latest digital content for the ultimate entertainment or commercial display experience. Westinghouse Digital’s award-winning consumer HDTV line up includes a complete family of 720p and 1080p LCD HDTVs and HD 1080p monitors in a range of sizes and formats, HD Grade standard and widescreen computer monitors and a full line of digital photo frames. Westinghouse Digital’s Commercial Business Unit offers complete set of customized display solutions including high-end LCD HDTVs and video monitors targeted to meet the demanding needs of the Pro A/V business sector, including digital signage applications.

As the power behind Adtek Media’s PumpTop TV network, Westinghouse Digital is the exclusive supplier of thousands of specially designed LCD screens that deliver entertainment, news and advertising in major brand gas stations to millions of viewers each month.

May 26, 2009

SANTA FE SPRINGS, CA — Westinghouse Digital Electronics, the maker of digital signage for c-stores and gas stations, now offers one for carwashes called The Car Wash Display, a press release reported.

 

The new all-weather signage comes with a 19” LCD screen and stand, neonSource™ software, andpre-loaded carwash-related ads and content. It’s soldexclusively through SONNY’s.

 

Rey Roque, Vice President of Marketing at Westinghousesaid in the press release, said that small to medium businesses like carwashes need all the edge they can get to succeed in today’s economy. “Westinghouse’s full suite of cost-effective, out-of-home digital signage solutions — which includes hardware and software to meet the needs of all kinds of businesses and environments — offer a very powerful way to drive sales by reaching customers when they are in purchase mode,” he said.

April 17, 2009

The InfoComm 100 conference in early April 2009 was the first time Andrew Sellers heard the term software as a service (SaaS), but it probably won’t be the last, based on what he’s seeing around the industry and at his firm, U.S.-based integrator Sensory Technologies.

“We’re approaching digital signage more and more every day as a service rather than a hardware sale because we’ve come to learn that our customers really are ill-prepared to run their digital signage services on their own,” says Sellers, CTS, a principal at the firm. “They haven’t thought about content management and development.”

In a nutshell, SaaS is a form of outsourcing. Instead of buying software outright – such as for managing content for digital signage – it’s leased for a monthly or quarterly fee.

“SaaS means exactly that: You are purchasing a service, not a product,” says Rob Robinson, marketing director at Stardraw, which offers software for a variety of AV applications. “Under the SaaS model, the end user must be granted a license to access the service for the period of use.”

It’s here that definitions start to diverge. For example, some vendors define SaaS broadly, including offerings sold directly to the end user, while others draw the line at platforms available only to integrators. Another debate is over whether SaaS includes services – such as managing the end user’s signage content – or just the software itself.

“The other camp, in my opinion, doesn’t know what SaaS is all about and seems to be talking about providing a service that involves software,” Robinson says. “Wrong. In SaaS, the software is the service.”

C-nario defines SaaS as leasing the software to the end user for a monthly fee, along with value-added services.

“We don’t offer SaaS directly but through our partners, such as T-Systems, who offer our software to their customers, along with other operational services they provide,” says Yael Elstein, vice president of marketing. “We refer to it as a managed services provider model.”

What’s the Business Case?

Definitions aside, one reason why SaaS is becoming more common – or at least more visible – is the lousy economy, which has enterprises of every size, as well as integrators, looking for ways to cut costs or at least spread them out over a few years.

“Our design applications are sold and treated like many other capital items: an upfront purchase price, with an annual subscription that delivers added-value services, [such as] technical support, access to online services and data updates,” Robinson says.

Depending on how the SaaS offering is structured, an expired contract doesn’t necessarily mean that the vendor sends out a message to tell the software to stop working.

“If the user’s subscription expires, they cannot get data updates, although they can still use the application and previously downloaded data,” says Robinson, referring to his company’s approach.

The role that timely data plays in the user’s – in this case, the integrator’s – end product is part of the motivation for going with an SaaS model.

“There is still room and demand for traditional applications with traditional pricing models, but having said this, SaaS is the way of the future,” Robinson says. “Where the timeliness of data or content is the key value proposition, then it makes sense to recognise and price the software as a service through which timely data can be manipulated. For example, a key feature of Racktools 3.5 is the ability to design, price and order a rack enclosure. You can only do this if you are accessing the current product list and pricing.”

Besides a recurring revenue stream, SaaS also creates an ongoing relationship between the two parties. For example, an integrator could use its SaaS contract as a way to keep its foot in the door at a client, so it can identify additional sales opportunities over time. By comparison, it’s tougher to identify those opportunities if the integrator installs the hardware and software and then just moves on to the next client, with relationship ending at the invoice.

For some enterprises, SaaS can be attractive for the way that it moves software from a capital expense to an operating expense, which can have tax benefits. The regulatory environment for their industry can be another motivation. For example, in some countries, regulators allow banks to loan only what their capital reserves can cover. By making software an operating expense, SaaS means they have more money to loan and thus greater profit potential.

Of course, some software is relatively inexpensive, to the point that it doesn’t make much sense for the end user or the vendor to buy and sell it on a SaaS basis. One example is Westinghouse’s neonNow, which runs about 700.

“From the neon software point of view, it didn’t make sense to make the software a stream of payments,” says Rey Roque, vice president of marketing at Westinghouse Digital. “The next iterations of development are for larger classes of Neon software that are multi-location and multi-screen, where you have different content being served. When we release that software, then I can see more of a x dollars per month model.”

Who Wants It?

When defined as a bundle of software and services, SaaS can be a good fit for major installations, especially when the scale means it’s too much for the client to handle on its own. Sensory Technologies, for example, has a signage client that has ample in-house expertise and equipment because of the industry it’s in but simply prefers to outsource managing that content.

“Even though they have a HD production facility in California, they don’t want to spend the time,” Sellers says. “It takes too much time to manage the content, push it out and schedule it. They’re looking to give it to us to do.”

One version of Westinghouse’s PumpTop TV plays to that approach. Gas station owners can buy and operate the platform, or they can choose the version where Westinghouse manages content that’s fed to displays atop gas station pumps. That frees gas station chains from having to add staff to create and schedule content, as well as license news and weather.

“The stream of payments also includes licensing of third-party content,” Roque says.

If the enterprise already buys other products and services on a subscription basis, it might be more receptive to going the same route for its pro AV needs.

“If they’ve already got a subscription to content, like satellite programming in a bar or restaurant, looking at software that they would pay a monthly license for is much more an extension of that,” Roque says.

How do integrators benefit in those scenarios? One possibility is that by making it easier for businesses large and small to add or expand AV solutions, SaaS eliminates some barriers to adoption, thus creating more work for integrators.

Risky Deal?

Like most new concepts, SaaS has its share of sceptics. One of their biggest concerns is that the client is at the mercy of a third party.

The worst-case scenario is that the third party halts operations, such as for bankruptcy, leaving the SaaS client scrambling to find another party to manage its content. Some sceptics point to Transit Television Network, which went bankrupt earlier this year, stranding clients such as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority.

“These transit authorities are sitting there with screens on their buses that are black,” says Jeff Collard, president of Omnivex, a Canadian vendor whose products include signage software. “It makes the transit authority look silly. If they owned the software and were running it themselves, they wouldn’t be in that situation.”

A related concern is whether SaaS limits the value of the installation – not just for the client, but also for the integrator. For example, the client might be comfortable with a third party managing the content for lobby signage at its offices around a country, but will it balk at letting that third party tap into its databases and systems in order to serve up more sensitive content?

An example of the latter is a warehouse where orders are displayed on signage throughout the facility, eliminating the need for pickers to have or go to a computer so they can get the next ticket. That kind of system would require the third party to access the client’s order system, raising concerns about security breaches that put that information in a rival’s or hacker’s hands. Those concerns could be a deal-breaker, with the client opting instead to manage that content itself by purchasing the necessary management software and servers.

Thinking Small

For integrators, one SaaS-related concern is whether some of those offerings could cut into their business.

“Many of the value-added resellers (VARs) seemingly tend to look at the larger content providers as having the potential of taking business away from them in that they might perceive that big XYZ SaaS company may take away their chances at on-going revenue,” says Chris Connery, vice president for PC and large format commercial displays at DisplaySearch, a research firm. “Most VARs recognize that for massive roll-outs, they won’t be the ones creating and managing content, so this fear isn’t really a fear but more of an acknowledgement.”

Hence the strategy of thinking small.

“What VARs are finding now are that there are many, many smaller digital signage roll-outs that might not require as a robust a system as might be offered by the ‘big guys in software,’ which is where the proprietary software solutions from the flat panel display manufacturers come into play. These solutions allow for integrators to be able to offer a solution immediately, out-of-the-box.”

But one size doesn’t always fit all.

“The important part for the VAR to understand is to be educated on the offerings of the bigger content management software companies and offer these as a solution as the installation dictates, [and] be knowledgeable of the limited-ability of the software solutions offered by the flat panel display manufacturers,” Connery says.