With System On Chip Growing (And Evolving), It’s Time For An Updated Report

August 17, 2018 by Dave Haynes

Click here to get a full-sized, more easily read version.

Sixteen:Nine has been following the emergence of System on Chip technology since it came on the market more than five year ago, and last year released a special report that took a detailed look into its merits and limits.

There are still some naysayers who don’t like the tech or, in some cases, trust the manufacturers, but there’s now no question SoC tech is “a thing” – with some major rollouts happening and solutions providers talking about the massive drops they’ve seen in field maintenance responsibilities.

With all that in mind, it’s time for a revisit, and Sixteen:Nine is fortunate to have the very active help of Prague-based SignageOS in developing an update to the report, but also providing much more technical detail and analysis.

So what’s a vendor doing in this?

Well, SignageOS does a lot of work with SoC, but doesn’t have a horse in the race, and is not just focused on SoC. The Czech startup has what it calls a unification platform that makes it easy to get a digital signage CMS and its player running on multiple kinds of devices. SignageOS sits in the middle and also handles the management and maintenance of the various devices.

That means SignageOS actively stays on top of SoC product releases and their changes, so its CMS software partners don’t have to. The work requires the software guys to stay very deep on what’s going on with these all-in-one displays.

We will be sending out a link to a form to software and display manufacturer contacts, probably next week, asking for their on or off-the-record insights on where SoC is at. If you use the tech or work with it, or don’t and have reasons why, I’d like your input.

Send me a note at dave AT sixteen-nine.net and I will get the form link to you.

Ahead of that, the SignageOS guys have developed an infographic that does an At A Glance look at the SoC ecosystem, as it stands right now. We think it is quite accurate, but if there are errors or things that are missing, let me know.

It’s a really interesting look at how different companies are using SoC, and what operating systems are being applied. Google is included because its ChromeOS is driving Chromebase all-in-one displays, which are very much like the other panels in terms of what they do.

The small version of the infographic is up top. Click here to get a full-sized, more easily read version.