ComQi Exits The Com Side Of Business Via Kramer Licensing Deal

January 29, 2013 by Dave Haynes

comkramAn email just came in that says Kramer Electronics and ComQi have done a “global strategic partnership agreement” that has the Com in ComQi effectively dealt to Kramer.

The agreement, says a release timed for Integrated Systems Europe in Amsterdam, provides Kramer Electronics with exclusive manufacturing, sales and marketing rights for ComQi’s (former Minicom Digital Signage) Media Distribution products and rights for ComQi to market and distribute Kramer’s products to its customer base.

Kramer Electronics Ltd., known in Pro-AV circles for audio, video and computer signal management products, is licensing the technology that was developed and marketed originally by Minicom. ComQi, if you have memorized the playbook, was formed from the merger of Minicom Digital Signage and software provider EnQii.

The agreement provides Kramer Electronics with exclusive manufacturing, sales and marketing rights for ComQi’s (Minicom Digital Signage) Media Distribution products and will allow Kramer to provide an end-to-end Digital Media solution encompassing media distribution, network management, content management and proof-of-performance, on various digital signage platforms, such as mobile web, and computer screens, based on ComQi hardware and software technologies. Kramer Electronics will be able to offer these timeless designed solutions to both small and large installations.

In addition, ComQi will market Kramer’s entire product suite to its customer base to continue to offer a full service solution to its global customers.

“Kramer has not bought our hardware business,” stresses Ajay Chowdhury, ComQi’s CEO, reached via email. “They are going to manage it worldwide. So we continue to have that part of the business in our portfolio and will sell it as an integrated model to our digital signage customers. Kramer will sell it to customers who don’t want our software and will also sell our software to their other hardware customers as needed.”

“We benefit from their size and global reach,” Chowdhury explains. “They get into digital signage with an excellent suite of software and hardware products.”

Going forward, however, Chowdhury says ComQi will focus solely on software and Kramer will handle any new hardware R&D.

“We are very pleased to have reached this agreement with ComQi, to manufacture, sell and market the Minicom Digital Signage products,” says Dr. Joseph Kramer, founder, president and chairman of Kramer Electronics, in the press release. “This agreement demonstrates Kramer’s commitment to provide the best digital signage solutions currently available, and enables us to focus on developing our portfolio with the next generation products.”

ComQi was always, to me at least, a weird marriage between SaaS software guys and video signal over Cat 5 hardware guys, from two very different cultures. This seems a logical fit, giving Kramer a high quality product sold by guys who only sell media distribution gear. It lets ComQi also sharpen its pitch and its development focus.

 

 

 

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