Signagelive Works Smart Signage Deal With Ingram

August 12, 2013 by Dave Haynes

Signagelive is the latest digital signage software company to take a crack at getting its offer marketed through distribution giant Ingram Micro.

The UK-based company now has a distribution agreement with Ingram, described as “the world’s largest wholesale technology distributor and a global leader in IT supply-chain, mobile device lifecycle services and logistics solutions.”

This is an approach that always seem awesome at first pass, but has rarely paid off for companies – simply because Ingram is as it is described: HUGE. With a lot of SKUs. They move stuff, not solutions – and digital signage is a solution.

However, what’s different here is the tie to Samsung. The electronics giant is bigger than Ingram and therefore gets a lot of attention and focus, like Ingram guys dedicated to Samsung.

“Signagelive was a premier partner on Samsung’s Smart Signage Platform and we are pleased to see such a strong Samsung distribution partner launch their line of content software,” says Richard Hutton, Director of Channel Marketing, at Samsung’s Enterprise Business Division. “Smart Signage Platform provides a streamlined display and content distribution technology that will reduce the cost of deployment and drive new markets for digital signage. Ingram Micro’s distribution capabilities coupled with Signagelive software and Samsung’s display technology promises to be a powerful combination for the channel.”

(Disclosure: Preset has done some work recently with Samsung.)

Signagelive is not the only company working on the Smart Signage Platform, but perhaps more than anyone else have seen the opportunity and run hard with it, leveraging the marketing muscle and sales team the electronics giant can bring.

The idea here is a “turnkey” offer that allows the ProAV and systems integrator crowd to pick up a commercial flat panel with the Samsung system on chip (embedded ARM processor in the panel), which can be configured to work with Signagelive just by pointing at a URL.

The combined offer will be touted this week at an Ingram Micro Pro AV/Digital Signage “bootcamp” this week in suburban Chicago.

If it works it is a nice little arrangement for Signagelive, which is still by and large a UK company with a small office in Chicago led by Raffi Vartian.