The AV industry has changed quite a bit since we were in high school. The days of overhead projectors and combination DVD/VHS TVs on carts are long gone. The same holds true in our corporate spaces, what was once a projector, screen, and wall plate is now a Crestron touch panel and room scheduler, wireless collaboration devices and HD video conferencing.
AV and collaborative technologies have become much easier to use and truly make meeting spaces more effective, however, as the technology gets easier to use it becomes more complicated to deploy. Lots of new collaborative technology relies on network connectivity, thus, coordination with IT personnel is paramount to deployment and management of the equipment. Each unit mentioned in the previous paragraph (Crestron touch panel, room scheduler, etc.) has some type of network component. The wireless collaboration device allows you to share content over your network to a display. The video conferencing piece uses bandwidth from your network to ensure a high quality call and the room scheduler communicates with an exchange server to enable scheduling of meeting spaces from Outlook.
As collaborative technologies continue their integration into corporate networks it’s no surprise that IT and AV teams are converging at such a high rate. We find the vast majority of our deployments are managed and maintained by IT staff as opposed to AV teams. Moving forward it will be crucial for your vendor of choice to have a working knowledge of corporate networks in order to unlock the true potential of up and coming collaborative technology. For more information or to request a quote don’t hesitate to contact us!