ISE Sixteen:Nine Mixer Sponsor Profiles: SignageOS

January 19, 2023 by Dave Haynes

Integrated Systems Europe is fully back after COVID-era disruptions, and Sixteen:Nine is doing a Barcelona version of the networking mixer it has been doing annually at DSE in Las Vegas for the past decade or so.

The event (sold out, sorry!) happens because of eight great sponsors who help cover the considerable costs. I like to thank and recognize sponsors by running company profiles, and the next one up involves SignageOS, a US/Czech software company that plays what I think is a unique role with software and hardware in this industry.

Earlier profiles:

Here’s what CEO Stan Richter and Marketing Director Martin Vallo had to say …

Q: Can you summarize what signageOS does and the profile of your customers?

signageOS accelerates adoption of any digital signage hardware and saves a lot of headaches. Our unification SDK and device management lets you use one codebase and remotely manage any piece of hardware like never before. We achieve this by close collaboration with all leading manufacturers, across all major OS platforms. The customer profile are generally content management companies, managed solution providers, integrators or OEMs.

Q: You recently announced a partnership with Sony. Can you describe what that partnership is all about and what it enables?

signageOS will provide streamlined integration to support Sony’s professional BRAVIA displays and create a more connected digital signage and content management system (CMS) framework for the company and their partners across the globe.  The new signageOS alliance will nearly double the compatibility of Sony’s displays to offer support for close to 60 integrated CMS options.  Additionally, the partnership will better position Sony’s network of systems integrators, resellers, channel partners, managed service providers and software alliance members to extend and expand their implementation of professional BRAVIA displays with greater ease due to signageOS’ single API system. The partnership provides support for so many of the providers that are driving the industry to transform and become faster, easier, and more integrated.

Q: Your company recently suggested that smart displays are almost at parity with PCs in terms of performance and capabilities. What’s still left to get to full parity, and are those capabilities critical or non-essential?

You are right, however you have to compare apples to apples; or the content playback performance and not raw performance. There is still a big difference in Intel i7 to any SoC displays in terms of how much performance is available. However, we really put the smart displays through their paces and pushed them to their limits. For general mainstream digital signage, they perform almost on par with PCs. We are talking about standard use cases across verticals such as QSR, transportation, retail, banking, education, etc.

In cases where you need to really have a lot of performance, such as 3D or webGL heavy use cases, you still need and always will need an external player. For SoCs, there is still room for improvement when running a variety of HTML5 sources, especially when displaying multiple videos at one time. In this case, we are confident that this will change with the rapidly evolving technologies available.

Q: How does a typical user or partner plug into signageOS and what are the impacts?

We are an API-first company, so partners plug into signageOS leveraging our APIs. It can be as simple as uploading their existing web app to signageOS which then lets you create and deploy native applications for any hardware you want to play content on. By doing these simple steps, partners become compatible not just with one, but with all of the hardware platforms. A single step, and you’re ready to go. For device management, it’s even simpler; you just need to deploy signageOS Cloud Control app that is readily available.

Q: You have a stand on the exhibit hall floor. What can attendees expect to see if they wander in or book a meeting?

At ISE, we will be focusing on demonstrating our five-star Device Management, that is designed and tailored for digital signage, which is pretty unique. We will provide demos on how it is possible to connect to your devices and ensure you have ultimate visibility and control. We will demonstrate how our hardware-agnostic device manager provides you with consistent features across all manufacturers and all with zero touch.

Q: What do you see as the main reason to be at ISE?

ISE is the world leading AV and systems integration exhibition. It is an important show where to present new products and see what is new on the world stage. ISE and other shows are a great opportunity to share our products and experiences with our partners and customers that are interested in digital signage. It is also a great opportunity to get together with partners from across Europe and the world.

Q: What key trends are you seeing in the marketplace? 

A lot is happening right now in the industry. For us, observing the consolidation is very interesting, and it is a testament to how our industry is maturing … and how far it has come. The services are becoming ever more complex and sophisticated, and not every company can keep up the pace. We have always put technology first, from day one, and I think it will benefit us in the long term as many companies will have to decide what is going to be their main focus, where will they generate the most value and what can distinguish them from the rest.

signageOS will be there to help and take some of the burden related to hardware integrations and overall hardware and software compatibility, so our partners can focus on what matters.

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Eight companies have stepped up to sponsor (thank you!) – with those funds covering a variety of costs like the venue, food, booze and staffing. The sponsors for the 2023 Mixer are:

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