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A View From The Road – Volume 2, Number 4
Observations on technology trends from the latest conferences
and seminars.
September 6, 2008
In This Edition:
• Grab Bag
• The Wainhouse
Research Summit
• Polycom Steps
Up
• News From CEDIA
• Changes As The Year
Ends
How did I spend my summer
vacation? Well, certainly not posting
new information from the road.
Sometimes life, a new employer and a nose-diving economy can get in the
way. But fear not, as this is a
catch-up edition – a grab bag of all the things you should know about if
you were running around as much as I was.
~~~~~~
I attended one of
the days of the Wainhouse Research Summit this past July. The trip was very worthwhile. Andrew Davis and his team put together an
excellent line-up of presenters. Andrew
Lippman of MIT’s Media Library gave a very informative keynote presentation
discussing (amongst other items) his vision of where technology is headed
in general. He made the point, as I
and others have also made, that we are at a social crossroads with some of
the new technology we are introducing.
We haven’t yet figured how we want to deal with the social
implications of some of the current and future technology. Do we truly want to virtually connect with
everyone in real time? Are we
prepared to handle “presence” information as it becomes more and more
accurate?
Many of the other
presenters at the Summit
shared case-studies regarding the effective use of collaborative
technologies. If you haven’t
noticed, people are finally using conferencing to make their jobs easier
and more cost effective. I guess we were
right for all those years after all.
~~~~~~
Toward the end of
the summer I got the opportunity to have a sneak preview of Polycom’s nearly completed Executive
Briefing Center
in Santa Cruz, California. I don’t want to reveal too much before
the place is open, but wow – it looks like they’ve done an excellent
job. From what I saw the clarity and
freshness of their messaging is superb.
The presentations speak not only about Polycom, but about the nature
of successful communication in general.
The opening of this center and a smaller version in New York represent a
tremendous step forward for Polycom.
Once these centers are officially open I urge everyone who can make
it to stop by and see what they have done.
~~~~~~
Finally, I ended
the summer trade-conference season as I have done for the past three years
at CEDIA. This show moves back to Atlanta next year, saying goodbye to its temporary Denver home. Although it is primarily focused on the
home theater space, I have found attendance very valuable, as it always
seems to launch a number of trends that wind-up crossing over into the
industrial market. This year was no
exception:
·
DUCK! Well, no – never
mind … don’t bend down, I only thought they were saying duck. What they were saying was “DOCK” as in
iPod dock. Tons of them, coming out
of everywhere. It was very clear at
this show that the iPhone 3G has created a tipping point for the saturation
of the iPod. These were not just
cheap, consumer electronics firms showing a clock-radio that can also play
your music. These were the high-end
audiophiles giving-in to the iPod as the center of the music library.
There were wired docks, wireless docks, servers with iPod
docks inside them and the ultimate – a Crestron series of products to
create an iPod home server environment – along with a soon-to-be-released
AppStore iPhone Crestron touch panel control application.
·
There were a lot of new innovations in LCD displays at the
show this year. Firstly, it seems
that “thin is in.” Sony, Sharp and
others were showing large format LCDs that are only 9.9mm thick.
Toshiba was showing-off their new Super Resolution Technology
(SRT) screens. Now that they’ve lost
the HD format war they’ve come along with a built-in upconversion and
enhancement process that they say will make “all your DVD’s and TV channels
feel like HD.” I guess we don’t need
to invest in that BlueRay player after all, huh?
Sharp showed a “limited edition” series of Aquos LCDs that
rival the contrast ratio and ‘black” reproduction of plasma screens.
·
My pick-hit of the show was a tiny, wireless keyboard made by
Logitech – the Dinovo Mini.
It isn’t new, but I had not seen it before. With about a $150 list price, it is a
fully functioning, palm-sized clamshell type keyboard – with a standard USB
receiver and standard drivers. What
a great way to add full keyboard functionality into a living room.
~~~~~~
There are lots of
potential news-making events on the horizon as we head into the last
quarter of 2008. As I write this we
are just beginning to digest a number of rumors, including a private equity
firm potentially interested in Tandberg and Samsung potentially interested
in acquiring SanDisk. Who knows what
other changes we may see in the current political and economic climate. Change does seem to be everyone’s
buzzword.
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A View From The Road is written by
David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions. David has spent
30 years in the audio visual and broadcasting industries. He has designed
facilities for firms such as AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley,
NYU and Lehman Brothers. He has just joined JPMorgan Chase & Company
and is the IMCCA’s Director of Emerging
Technology. Email David at David.Danto.IMCCA@Danto.com
About the IMCCA
The Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance (IMCCA) is a
not-for-profit user application and industry focused association with
membership comprised of service and product providers, consultants, and users.
Members benefit from the understanding and the use of various interactive
and collaborative communications technologies in their professional and
everyday lives.
For further information please contact Carol Zelkin, IMCCA Executive
Director, at 516-818- 8184 or czelkin@imcca.org. Visit the IMCCA web site
at www.imcca.org
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