In an effort to make it simpler for resellers to sell and implement digital signage solutions, ViewSonic has announced three new products that are designed to make things easier.
Gene Ornstead, director of DTV and business development at ViewSonic, said while there’s growing interest from the market for digital signage solutions, due to the traditionally fragmented market space there’s still a lot of confusion regarding how to implement it and how it works.
Colleen Browne, director of North American sales at ViewSonic, said with the company’s new Signage Manager Express, ScheduleIt and video wall solutions, selling digital signage solutions have never been easier.
Signage Manager Express is a software solution that “talks” to the boxes in order to create and display content such as video files and slides from play lists. The software is now shipping with ViewSonic media players, he said. The good thing about this digital signage solution is that it comes with the hardware and software already installed in it, he added.
“SMBs and schools are the target customers for this solution,” Ornstead said. “You can push content to it through a USB drive or through the net to send it to the media player. You can even split the video signal if you want more than one display showing the same content.”
Next month, the company will release its Windows-based ScheduleIt software that enables wireless communication to the network. The software will be available on a 10-inch commercial display that will come in both a wireless and wired model. This display solution is designed to work in the background of the Microsoft Outlook soft calendar by pushing meetings and related notifications to displays throughout an organization.
Customer environments where Ornstead said he sees the solution doing well in include the hospitality and education sector, in addition to the corporate business environment with meeting rooms.
Pricing for ScheduleIt is sold by the pack, depending on how many displays an organization wants to use. The three-pack version starts at about $750 and a six-pack version is about $1,200. When it’s out next month, ScheduleIt will be sold in a choice of three, six, 12 and 24-packs.
The other digital signage solution coming from ViewSonic next month is the video wall. This solution uses MultiView software and can support up to 25 screens, Ornstead said. The software allows multiple displays to showcase either one gigantic image, or separate ones. With MultiView, customers can create zones to create a matrix of an image or images.
“With the software, you can drag and drop the content you want to play into each of the zones (on the displays) that you’ve designed and you can also sequence page designs,” Ornstead said.
There are three different types of page designs that can be used with MultiView which include one large image and individual images that play simultaneously on each screen and displays that show one image across the top of several screens, with different and individual content playing at the same time below.
For just under $20,000, now partners can offer their customers a more affordable and complete turn-key video solution, all from a single vendor, Ornstead said.
Browne said the customer opportunities for video walls are limitless.
“You can have video walls in stadiums, restaurants, banks, theatres, you name it,” she said. “The concept is growing exponentially and a video wall can even be as simple as just having three displays in one row, or you can have a total of up to 25 screens.”
Ornstead said the new digital signage solutions from ViewSonic have been designed to encourage more resellers to enter the digital signage space.
“We’re making digital signage easy, affordable and accessible for the masses from small, single users with hallway-type displays, to larger customers that have multiple media rooms or conference areas,” he said. “We’re offering a one-stop solution for our partners so they can get a total solution from just one vendor now.”
Since digital signage is still not as widely implemented in the market yet, there are “healthy double-digit margins” to be made with bundled solutions, Ornstead said. There’s also an opportunity for partners to also provide additional services and installation, he added.
As a message to ViewSonic resellers, Browne said to partners, “Don’t be intimidated by digital signage. We have three easy digital signage solutions that can help you gain incremental revenue and margin right now.
Follow Maxine Cheung on Twitter: @MaxineCheungCDN.
