AV/IT Convergence = Business

When the Internet was created, its creators did not conceive of the internet as what it is now and how it is used today; moreover, perhaps they did not even think that it would serve to support the creation of strategic alliances in business, or to allow those who use it to have access to remote and distant places, as is happening with the audio and video industry.

Today the Internet, together with the technological developments of this sector, are discovering another way for AV systems and services to be optimized and more efficient, so that end users find solutions to all their needs.

For this first edition of AVI LATINOAMÉRICA magazine we interviewed Randall Lemke, president of InforComm International, the association that links professionals in the AV segment, who tells us about the future and present of communications in the audio and video industry, and the influence of the network on it.

For Lemke the worlds of AV and internet, although they have not developed at the same time, present similar conditions of progress, which vary between countries or regions, but in the end will be the same for users. In each market there are particularities; for example, in the United States both the AV and IT segments are very strong, but in Asia Information Technology has developed much more than VA, however the convergence of both segments enables the growth of more specialized businesses.

In terms of AV telecommunications, the Internet not only allows companies to offer more current, more technological and more developed services, but also enables closer interaction with users and, in turn, the satisfaction of their needs for speed to receive information; contrary to what happened 30 years ago, when this industry depended on tape-based systems such as Betamax or VHS to pass information from one place to another; this situation began to change with the emergence of digital storage media such as memory sticks and USB flashes .

It should be noted that although business development potentiates the growth of the industry, the geographical and technological conditions of a region hinder the access or advancement of technology, and in Latin America the high cost of bandwidth hinders the use of certain applications; however, telecommunications service providers are aware of the need to improve these conditions.

Other aspects that Lemke highlights are the training, education and constant updating of specialists in the AV industry in computer science, in order to be even more competitive and to be able to work with IT professionals, who do not agree very much with the use of their networks to put other systems to work on them.

Radall assures that conflicts will always arise, but that the important thing is to understand what the managers of the networks think and know about their work, since their main function is to avoid that there is slowness in these networks, that they fall or that their security is threatened.

Returning again to the topic of the joint work of VA with the Internet, the question arises of what implications will have in the future the changes that are being presented in our industry, with respect to the fields of communications and computing.

For this question, the  president of InforComm International affirms that there will be changes, but for the better, since there will be a greater availability of resources, in addition to a wide range of businesses that are glimpsed in the future, which will make integrators adapt to their new working conditions.

For the AV industry, joining the field of IP means having more specialized services, and that fit the true needs of different sectors.