SpinetiX Debuts DSOS – A Dedicated OS For Digital Signage

February 4, 2020 by Dave Haynes

The Swiss digital signage company SpinetiX – which has always marketed a proprietary hardware/software solution – will debut next week at ISE a new, more open system that has a dedicated operating system as its feature piece.

DSOS is touted as the first-ever operating system (OS) designed for digital signage that will run on its own little boxes, or on Intel-based PC platforms.

This special-purpose OS – trademarked by SpinetiX – is lean, high-performance, and continually secured. It is maintained by a dedicated engineering team at SpinetiX with more than a decade of experience in hardened, secure devices and operating systems.

Compared to a general-purpose OS, DSOS by SpinetiX comes with a number of benefits for both the end customer and the reseller:

• Increased security and reliability significantly reduce maintenance and other overhead costs;

• Superior optimization for digital signage ensures flawless support for the most diverse and demanding signage scenarios.

“DSOS by SpinetiX will generate new opportunities in IoT applications, including kiosks, retail, smart building and smart cities. An OS dedicated to signage; is the first step to standardizing the digital signage infrastructure in future deployments. Together with Intel, we believe this is the way forward for sustaining the growth of digital signage and this is why we work together to make it happen,” says Francesco Ziliani, CEO of SpinetiX.

There is a bit of hair-splitting going on here, as both SpinetiX and BrightSign have long had dedicated operating systems for their little media player boxes. There are probably others, though the majority of signage applications run on various versions of Linux and Windows. The distinction here, I think, is that this extends beyond a manufacturer’s own specially designed and tuned devices.

So an end-user could run the lean, optimized DSOS on a SpinetiX box, but also on an Intel NUC bought off CDW or a NUC variant from a company like Seneca.

That said, the company will also debut the 4th generation of its proprietary silver HMP media players at ISE.  The new HMP400 supports 4K at 60 fps, Power over Ethernet (PoE), WiFi, and HTML5.

SpinetiX is also broadening how you can buy its Arya software, adding premium and enterprise versions. 

This is an interesting development. I’m a little curious why the company is expanding beyond its own proprietary devices, which have a solid reputation for being both powerful and super-reliable. The notion of a stripped-down, dedicated operating system that is JUST for signage makes sense, as a lot of the extraneous stuff designed into a general OS goes away.

Have a demo planned for next week in Amsterdam.

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