ISE 2024 Impressions: Day Two – I’ve Got Almost Nothing
January 31, 2024 by Dave Haynes
Conference day for Dave.
Heard great stuff. Learned things. Met some amazing people (looking at you, in particular, Nita). Was on the interview side of interviews, not asking. So I spent very little time on the floor.
The net result. Precious little to report other than ISE was super-busy again. I had an interview commitment that kept me from going to Samsung’s VXT launch. Samsung, of course, thinks it is awesome and that everyone agrees. Their CMS software partners are, umm, less enthused by the company formally going into their business.
One interesting nugget that backed up my own long-held point of view – my friends at Invidis are analyzing and benchmarking CMS software platforms, and finding they’re all variations on the same thing.
I get offered endlessly to get demos of the UXs of CMX platforms, and I find ways to politely decline, as I had long since concluded they all pretty much look and work the same. The Invidis research is finding the same thing.
That’s good and bad. Good that there are many perfectly capable options. Bad that there are many perfectly capable options.
That means as a software company you are either competing on awareness, vertical market expertise or price, and the third option is deadly.
I saw an AOTO 0.3mm pitch LED on the way in this morning. As fine a pitch as I have seen, but it an R&D product and the size of a cocktail napkin.
Commitments kept me from seeing anything else, and happily, my evening was spent watching FC Barcelona win its La Liga match. Giant thank you to SignageOS for arranging that for me and several other football-loving industry folks.
1:31 am. Slightly tipsy and way more than slightly tired. 7 am wakey-wakey. At least I had the smarts to leave some folks at a bar and go back to my AirBnB!
I will hopefully have more to report/write from Day 3. Zzzzz.
Dave, it was a pleasure to have you! It was a blast.
Aw missed seeing you guys there! Was nice a fun night and Barca scored a great goal!
I like your take Dave. I’ve long said that every CMS out there fundamentally does two things; Firstly smashes together data and media. Secondly, it enables the user to throw them into a layout and publish them to a screen. Over time it’s natural for an industry to homogenize the best way for humans to interface with that concept.
What I’m looking forward to is the upcoming generation and *their* expectations on UX/UI. For decades we’ve assumed people know what a file structure is, basic O/S knowledge, etc. We’re seeing a massive shift in the population where many young adults are not exposed to computing outside of iOS. How do we simplify these workflows, while enabling a more dynamic outcome on the screens? Time will tell!
While I wasn’t there either, I suspect the VXT launch event was similar to the SoC launch all those many years ago – flowing cocktails, glowing endorsements from bought and paid for “experts” and lot of backslapping and bloviation about how this is revolutionary. Ummm, no.
Like SoC, it will only appeal to a certain segment of the market that is willing to go all in on a glass vendor and ignore cost of ownership. This time though, instead of creating an opportunity for software partners to prosper and assist in marketing, it offers them the bird. Is anyone surprised?