Dutch Firm Opens Android Digital Signage CMS Up To Developers

January 30, 2014 by Dave Haynes

The Dutch software company Novus Solutions has opened up its Android digital signage software platform, called Hello Infinity, to third-party developers.

The development set is called Open-Display, and is a set of tools for developers who are looking for an easy way to integrate digital signage into their own software.  It is not open-sourced, but more like a Google API, like the one you would use for maps. The company does plan to put We will be putting open source apps online for developers, like a Playlist editor, Theme editor and so on … 

Says Novus CTO Tim Donselaar: “To date, when parties wanting to integrate digital signage into their software or product, they had to develop it themselves or outsource it to a software developer. With the arrival of Open-Display, any developer can start using our platform and simply integrate it into existing software, while still making use of their own front and back end. Within no time, a set of tools enables developers to create a platform shortening developments of several years to several months or even weeks.”

Novus says the blend of  HTML5 and Android means it is possible to display content on a wide variety of devices, whether it’s Android, Windows, OSX, Linux or SOC.

The Open-Display toolset has been built on the infrastructure of Google (similar to Rise Vision), which allows the platform to facilitate millions of users and devices. The connections and data storage are very safe, says Novus in its news release, because they too run through Google data centres. User data are encrypted on Google servers and can only be approached by means of a secured connection. 

So … if it is free, how does Novus make money? “Giving developers the tools to create signage apps, or even create a whole company around it, will bring end users to the platform,” explains Dennis Schellekens, Business Manager for Novus. “End-users are the ones that pay for the service. To keep high quality, we will charge a small fee for end-users connecting a device to our platform.”

The company is now looking for beta testers, and they can sign up here.