Poppulo Largest CMS Company To Date To Adopt Amazon’s $100 Signage Stick As Hardware Option
December 5, 2024 by Dave Haynes
When etailing giant Amazon announced a couple of months ago that it had developed and was now marketing a lean version of its Fire TV HDMI sticks and specifically calling it the Amazon Signage Stick, it was reasonable to assume that the main software partners for the $100 device would be companies focused on the small to medium business space.
While that was largely true, we’re now seeing much larger companies with big and broad installed bases also adding this device to its options.
Poppulo (who many industry people will know is the new-ish handle for Denver’s Four Winds Interactive) has announced it now also supports the Amazon Signage Stick, saying it “seamlessly integrates with Poppulo’s advanced content management system, allowing businesses to manage and deploy dynamic content effortlessly across multiple locations while benefiting from cloud-based updates, powerful performance, and the robust security of AWS infrastructure.”
“This collaboration allows us to offer a highly flexible and cost-effective digital signage solution that caters to a range of business applications,” says Joe Giebel, SVP of Digital Signage at Poppulo. “Together, we’re lowering the barriers to entry for businesses that want to communicate effectively and dynamically.”
The low price and and Amazon’s crazily efficient distribution network – you can probably order and get new devices in two days or less – are obviously attractive to smaller software companies that are competing for business mainly on price, and trying to offer hardware that is budget-friendly but is also deeply supported and has the same hardware build from shipment to shipment.
Most of the CMS partners to date are pretty small – 25 or even five people or less in headcount – but not all of them. Screencloud is north 0f 100 people. But Poppulo – which serves numerous markets – is several hundred people and has genuinely enterprise customers like Delta Airlines. But it also has, in all, some 4,500 customers. While a Fortune 100 customer might have no interest in using a variation on a consumer-grade device, there would be lots of much smaller customers in that 4,500 who would be asking about lowering hardware costs.
Amazon’s main selling points for the device are:
- Seamless content management software integration – works out-of-the-box with multiple leading CMS applications (separate CMS subscription required);
- Designed for digital signage – auto-launches content management software in kiosk mode for unattended operation, increasing uptime without requiring user involvement;
- Easy set up – connects to screen in minutes with no technical expertise. Setting up one or many Signage Sticks with a supported content management software is easy, using a hassle-free process that can be completed from a mobile device.
Amazon also stresses the devices are locked down: Secure and reliable, with a secure boot loader, data encryption, and regular updates that keep signage safe and running smoothly.
I assume Amazon has a couple of motives for being in this space:
- a stripped-down sole-purpose version of the stick opens up a new market for its hardware and maybe delivers more margin per device, as the sticks don’t compete in signage with the $39 Roku HDMI sticks that Amazon is up against in the consumer market;
- more devices in B2B settings are more new endpoints for distribution, and perhaps for harvesting data and adding to a base of knowledge for Amazon’s AI efforts.
This is what Amazon shows this morning as its CMS partner ecosystem.
Reminds me of Chrome/Google. Sounds good. I notice that Poppulo has nice video bragging on new hardware relationship with Pyramid. High quality industrial PCs. Maybe Poppulo gave up on NUCs. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7269682287519088640/
Unfortunately this device costs more than the standard Fire stick, and all it is doing is auto loading the app. You actually are paying more for less and deployment wasn’t the easiest as well. I hope Amazon considers that their customers for this device will largely be small business and they will choose to make this better priced.