Corporate Users in Spotlight at Upcoming InfoComm

May 12, 2005 8:00 AM

Plummeting prices can create as many problems as they solve. Faced with projectors that cost less than $1,000 and plasma screens that are perennially on sale at the local Big Box, corporate AV users may find they don’t need less help making sense of it all—they need more.

Enter InfoComm, whose 2005 edition takes place at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with the conference from June 4-10 and exhibits on the last three days.

The International Communications Industries Association, manager of InfoComm, says more than 700 exhibitors are expected to display, filling nearly 300,000 net square feet and drawing an audience of more than 25,000. This is the “western” year for InfoComm, which returns to the East Coast next year in Orlando, Fla.

With displays of all kinds widely available at commodity prices and the media full of talk about the convergence of AV with the IT environment, ICIA Executive Director Randal Lemke, Ph.D., says InfoComm has a more vital role to play than ever before.

Consider the much-heralded marriage of AV and IT. One seminar description in an InfoComm advance mailer says the issue may be a “dead horse,” but Lemke says it still needs plenty of attention. “Nobody doubts the decision is made and there is no going back,” he says. “For most companies, this is a completed issue, and they know that AV and IT are converging. For those companies who do not, they either need to gain this recognition or find very good strategies to avoid the consequences of not doing so.”

Accepting the convergence means AV integrators need to make a series of tactical decisions, he adds. “Will they create an inhouse capacity? Will they look to partner with an IT company? Will they recreate themselves totally to be an IT company that does AV? These and other strategies can be viable,” Lemke says.

To help integrators develop these strategies, and corporate users understand what’s coming next, InfoComm is organizing a roster of special events, including technology pavilions devoted to collaborative conferencing, streaming media, and other topics. “In one sense, the issue is dead,” Lemke says, “but in a very real sense it has only just begun.”

InfoComm’s educational program aims to serve both integrators and their clients and to help both constituencies relate to the very new terms governing their relationship. Lemke notes this is not the first time the industry has had to evolve. “It is hard to define a traditional pro AV dealer, especially when you look over the 60-plus years of ICIA history,” he says.

“During this time the only definition of a traditional pro AV dealer is one that focuses on creating communications systems to serve customer needs and using the best technologies of the day to do so. When those technologies were portable and very easily sold through a catalog/box sales approach, our members did that, and it served their customers.”

Today, the consumer electronics channel is playing a more central role. However, Lemke maintains, “Our members are still serving their customers through integration of many systems, which is not a box sale. Our members are selling their knowledge and expertise, and these are critical value-added components that they can deliver and the consumer channel cannot.

For more information, visit www.infocomm.org.