What Are You Doing About Moore’s Law?

January 25, 2014 by guest author, Steve Schildwachter

I’ve been going over my end-of-year financials, and looking back over the three years since I bought my company, Unified Brand.

Running the numbers made me realize that none of the four main things I buy and then re-sell all the time in digital signage – media players, software, licenses and content – have gone down much in price, or increased much in functionality, over those three years.

I have increased my team’s productivity in what I can control (the development of content and playlist management), and the costs of display panels and networking have come down (just as much due to factors beyond digital signage). But what the current vendors claim as innovations – things like cloud-based computing and new processors (Android and Raspberry Pi) – either haven’t delivered real cost savings, or met the required functionality of my clients.

I have go-to stuff and preferred vendors, but to make clear, I am not locked into given providers, and I steadily investigate and talk with many alternative companies. But none have stepped up to this innovation challenge.

We are not a mature industry in which Moore’s Law – the much-cited engineering notion that computing capabilities double every two years – would have plateaued. So why hasn’t this happened? Where’s the real innovation in the digital signage sector?

If this doesn’t change, the industry could be in trouble. End users expect us to provide more on the costs/functionality growth line, and if we don’t deliver, they can take their  communication budgets in other directions

I don’t have a ready answer, but I’m looking for it, from someone.

I’ll be at Digital Signage Expo , walking the floor, and looking for true engineering innovation, and not just trade show booth bait or new functions. I’d like to engage in a discussion, with any company at DSE, that can show me its people understand the need to achieve the Moore’s Law level of innovation, to survive over the long term.

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