Why Laptops Will Survive in a Tablet World By Michael Blumreich
Tablet computers have been getting plenty of press lately, thanks mainly to the iPad, the newest Apple product to hit the market. Laptops are still the workhorse of the portable computing world, and will most likely weather the tablet storm and perhaps come out ahead of its netbook cousin.
...Read More »
Statistics that have DAM Meaning By Matthew Gonnering
We probably have baseball and The Sporting News to thank for the proliferation of statistics in all sports. Yet, Mark Twain once said there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Of course, he was speaking about to the persuasive power of numbers and about how people will either promote or ignore statistics based entirely on whether or not they support a position. This â??truthâ?? is the reason many baseball arguments have never been settled.
...Read More »
Viva la Social Media Revolución! By Mark Sigal
A lot of has been written about Facebook?s evolution into a Web platform that will support content and features from third-party developers. Articles by Erick Schonfeld (Business 2.0), Marc Andreessen and James Currier, respectively, paint a nice composite picture of the WHAT and WHY behind Facebook?s F8 Platform move, along with its impact on the Internet industry.
...Read More »
Sideloading Comes of Age By Philip John, CEO Clippz.com
The iPhone came, it saw, and it conquered a huge chunk of the American media bandwidth for several weeks. One prominent consumer technology magazine even called it the ?Jesus phone,? and likened its debut to such discoveries as fire and the wheel (of course, with requisite sarcasm). When it comes to technology product introductions, no one does it with more bombast, seduction and ?production values? than does Apple.
...Read More »
Five things to hate and love about Apple?s iPhone By Matthew David
Unless you have been living under a rock, you cannot have failed to notice the multi-million dollar marketing blitz Apple and AT&T are conducting about the iPhone. If you read the reports and the blogs on the Internet it is hard to know if people love the iPhone or if they hate. With that in mind, we have put together a list of the five things to hate about the iPhone and five things to love.
...Read More »
Content Insider #68 By Miles Weston
Web 2.0 -- the next great thing -- is all the rage among teens and tweens...oh yes and VCs & M&A folks. Is it the place you have to be? Is it the place you want to be? Or put another way...is there any money in it for you ?
...Read More »
DVD Insider #64 - Into the Pirates Lair By Andy Marken
"Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly.stupid." - Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
...Read More »
When Marketing People Go Amok By Esther Schindler
Honest, we understand. It's a marketing person's job to make a presentation sound exciting and relevant as well as informational. But the TechEd presentation titles are, quite literally, beyond audience comprehension.
...Read More »
Do You Volunteer? By Gary Kayye, CTS
Do you volunteer? If you don?t, you should. One of my first weeks in this industry back in 1987 was attending InfoComm?s (then known as ICIA) Institute for Professional Development and a class led by Mike Weems. It was on video production techniques and was simply awesome. The very next year, I attended a class taught by 6+ year industry veteran Fred Dixon on AV systems design. The instruction blew me away. It was far and in away better than most courses I ever took in college, and certainly more helpful in my new -real-world life.
...Read More »
Way Too Hard = Way Too Bad By Gary Kayye, CTS
A recent study by a major university on the Netherlands found that product complexity actually caused over 50 percent of product returns. Graduate student Elke den Ouden of the Technical University of Eindhoven studied people who purchased consumer electronics products and how they tried (and in many cases failed) to use them, successfully. In virtually all cases where a consumer tried and failed to figure out how to use a product and then gave up, the product itself was actually in good working order. There was no product failure.
...Read More »
A Column for AV Guys: The Guillotine By Gary Kayye, CTS
I was sooo excited while watching the Super Bowl coverage earlier this month to see that someone finally, FINALLY, crossed the 4-blade razor blade barrier. The long-overdue 5-blade system has finally made its debut. The oh-hum [insert yawn here] market of the 3-blade and 4-blade systems that has dominated the shaving market with has-been gear like Gillette?s Mach3Turbo and the Schick Quattro has finally been shaken up with the 5-blade Gillette Fusion. I ran out and bought one the very next day.
...Read More »
KNews Insider: The Final Sayye with Gary Kayye By Gary Kayye, CTS
I?ve had the October 14, 2005 issue of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on my desk since the day it came out. I?ve been meaning to write this story for a long time, but just didn?t have the time or opportunity. But, now it?s time.In the Marketplace section of the WSJ on that day had an article entitled ?The Laptop Backlash,? well-written by Gary McWilliams. Well, you know what I think? Boo-fricking-hoo.
...Read More »
Kayye's Krystal Ball - v.06 By Gary Kayye, CTS
Welcome to my seventh annual Krystal Ball feature article about predictions for the upcoming year for Professional AV, and even some Home AV technology, trends and products. If you?re a regular reader of this column, then you know that each year I actually start by reviewing my predictions from last year?s column
...Read More »
Service Contracts are Easy to Sell: Sell Job Security By Gary Kayye, CTS
If you?re a regular reader of my columns, you know that our firm works with dealers, on occasion, to help them become more profitable. In some cases, it?s a box company wanting to learn how to sell systems. In some cases, it?s a systems integrator trying to sell design/build contracts. In some cases, it?s a design/build firm trying to get better cost accounting on jobs. But, in almost all cases, they are all equally frustrated at the level of success they have selling their most profitable product: service contracts.
...Read More »
Annual rAVe CEDIA Awards By Gary Kayye, CTS
Gary Kayye is a big fan of the CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) show, and attends it every year. Here are his picks for the best of the best from this year's exhibition.
...Read More »
Product Activation and the World of Tomorrow By Kevin Schmitt
Now that us lowly users have been unwillingly pushed down the slippery slope that is product activation, this particular article is equivalent to the proverbial closing of the barn doors after the horse has escaped. Actually, it's more like picking up the door and leaning it on the charred ruins of the barn after it burned down years ago, what with the horse having run out to flee the fire, but I digress. Since activation refuses to just go away entirely, I still (naively) think that there's a balance that can be struck between legitimate users and software publishers.
...Read More »
LCD or DLP Projection? Decisions, Decisions By Gary Kayye, CTS
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines ? projector engines, that is. Since 1998, Texas Instruments' DLP division has out-marketed, out-maneuvered, out-published and, according to many sales figures, even out-sold LCD in virtually of the leading projector vertical market segments. I say "virtually" because there are some markets in which DLP hasn't been playing ? but when it does, it generally wins.
...Read More »
Have you Crossed the Chasm? By Gary Kayye, CTS
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore is probably the single most important book to read as a ProAV system salesperson (or systems designer) today! It is, in my opinion, the blueprint for the customer sales and marketing process of AV technology. When it was published in the early 1990s it was geared toward the computer industry. Its prophecies, however, are now becoming a reality in the ProAV market of today.
...Read More »
Live From infoComm: Attendance Record Broken By Gary Kayye, CTS
ICIA announced another record attendance here at the show this week, with a more than 10 percent increase over last year, totaling 25,821 as of Thursday. Expect the final numbers to be even more impressive. Also, it?s that time of year again. The year is half way over and it?s time to review my 2005 predictions.
...Read More »
NO...Doesn't have a thing to do with "that" smartphone...or "that" store...or "that" tablet. It's the next generation. Kids and we mean little kids. That's what today's products are being designed for/targeted at. You happen to buy one...fine. Watch a little, little kid pick up a smartphone. He/she just uses it. They've come pre-wired and we're still trying to figure out how to IM. It's the IGen. They want it instantly. They want to use it instantly. They expect their photos, their video, their music, their stuff immediately when/where/how they want it.
Read More
In this clip, lynda.com host Mark Abdelnour takes a look at proxy bidding. He discusses the strategy and how it works. He also discusses the maximum bid, and when to use Proxy bidding.
Read More
The blood, gore, adrenalin challenges that were unveiled at E3 and enjoyed at ComicCon are fun to look at, easy to hold but are they really the games people want to plunk down their credit cards to own or rent time with? Seems as though the investors, the players who control the controllers have a different idea of a "good" game than the kids who develop them. While mobs of people play educational, informational, stimulating games our kid huddles in his room and mumbles "The Few, The Proud, The Gamers."
Read More
Why Laptops Will Survive in a Tablet World
Tablet computers have been getting plenty of press lately, thanks mainly to the iPad, the newest Apple product to hit the market. Laptops are still the workhorse of the portable computing world, and will most likely weather the tablet storm and perhaps come out ahead of its netbook cousin.
...Read More »
Statistics that have DAM Meaning
We probably have baseball and The Sporting News to thank for the proliferation of statistics in all sports. Yet, Mark Twain once said there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Of course, he was speaking about to the persuasive power of numbers and about how people will either promote or ignore statistics based entirely on whether or not they support a position. This â??truthâ?? is the reason many baseball arguments have never been settled.
...Read More »
Viva la Social Media Revolución!
A lot of has been written about Facebook?s evolution into a Web platform that will support content and features from third-party developers. Articles by Erick Schonfeld (Business 2.0), Marc Andreessen and James Currier, respectively, paint a nice composite picture of the WHAT and WHY behind Facebook?s F8 Platform move, along with its impact on the Internet industry.
...Read More »
Sideloading Comes of Age
The iPhone came, it saw, and it conquered a huge chunk of the American media bandwidth for several weeks. One prominent consumer technology magazine even called it the ?Jesus phone,? and likened its debut to such discoveries as fire and the wheel (of course, with requisite sarcasm). When it comes to technology product introductions, no one does it with more bombast, seduction and ?production values? than does Apple.
...Read More »
Five things to hate and love about Apple?s iPhone
Unless you have been living under a rock, you cannot have failed to notice the multi-million dollar marketing blitz Apple and AT&T are conducting about the iPhone. If you read the reports and the blogs on the Internet it is hard to know if people love the iPhone or if they hate. With that in mind, we have put together a list of the five things to hate about the iPhone and five things to love.
...Read More »
Content Insider #68
Web 2.0 -- the next great thing -- is all the rage among teens and tweens...oh yes and VCs & M&A folks. Is it the place you have to be? Is it the place you want to be? Or put another way...is there any money in it for you ?
...Read More »
DVD Insider #64 - Into the Pirates Lair
"Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly.stupid." - Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
...Read More »
When Marketing People Go Amok
Honest, we understand. It's a marketing person's job to make a presentation sound exciting and relevant as well as informational. But the TechEd presentation titles are, quite literally, beyond audience comprehension.
...Read More »
Do You Volunteer?
Do you volunteer? If you don?t, you should. One of my first weeks in this industry back in 1987 was attending InfoComm?s (then known as ICIA) Institute for Professional Development and a class led by Mike Weems. It was on video production techniques and was simply awesome. The very next year, I attended a class taught by 6+ year industry veteran Fred Dixon on AV systems design. The instruction blew me away. It was far and in away better than most courses I ever took in college, and certainly more helpful in my new -real-world life.
...Read More »
Way Too Hard = Way Too Bad
A recent study by a major university on the Netherlands found that product complexity actually caused over 50 percent of product returns. Graduate student Elke den Ouden of the Technical University of Eindhoven studied people who purchased consumer electronics products and how they tried (and in many cases failed) to use them, successfully. In virtually all cases where a consumer tried and failed to figure out how to use a product and then gave up, the product itself was actually in good working order. There was no product failure.
...Read More »
A Column for AV Guys: The Guillotine
I was sooo excited while watching the Super Bowl coverage earlier this month to see that someone finally, FINALLY, crossed the 4-blade razor blade barrier. The long-overdue 5-blade system has finally made its debut. The oh-hum [insert yawn here] market of the 3-blade and 4-blade systems that has dominated the shaving market with has-been gear like Gillette?s Mach3Turbo and the Schick Quattro has finally been shaken up with the 5-blade Gillette Fusion. I ran out and bought one the very next day.
...Read More »
KNews Insider: The Final Sayye with Gary Kayye
I?ve had the October 14, 2005 issue of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on my desk since the day it came out. I?ve been meaning to write this story for a long time, but just didn?t have the time or opportunity. But, now it?s time.In the Marketplace section of the WSJ on that day had an article entitled ?The Laptop Backlash,? well-written by Gary McWilliams. Well, you know what I think? Boo-fricking-hoo.
...Read More »
Kayye's Krystal Ball - v.06
Welcome to my seventh annual Krystal Ball feature article about predictions for the upcoming year for Professional AV, and even some Home AV technology, trends and products. If you?re a regular reader of this column, then you know that each year I actually start by reviewing my predictions from last year?s column
...Read More »
Service Contracts are Easy to Sell: Sell Job Security
If you?re a regular reader of my columns, you know that our firm works with dealers, on occasion, to help them become more profitable. In some cases, it?s a box company wanting to learn how to sell systems. In some cases, it?s a systems integrator trying to sell design/build contracts. In some cases, it?s a design/build firm trying to get better cost accounting on jobs. But, in almost all cases, they are all equally frustrated at the level of success they have selling their most profitable product: service contracts.
...Read More »
Annual rAVe CEDIA Awards
Gary Kayye is a big fan of the CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) show, and attends it every year. Here are his picks for the best of the best from this year's exhibition.
...Read More »
Product Activation and the World of Tomorrow
Now that us lowly users have been unwillingly pushed down the slippery slope that is product activation, this particular article is equivalent to the proverbial closing of the barn doors after the horse has escaped. Actually, it's more like picking up the door and leaning it on the charred ruins of the barn after it burned down years ago, what with the horse having run out to flee the fire, but I digress. Since activation refuses to just go away entirely, I still (naively) think that there's a balance that can be struck between legitimate users and software publishers.
...Read More »
LCD or DLP Projection? Decisions, Decisions
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines ? projector engines, that is. Since 1998, Texas Instruments' DLP division has out-marketed, out-maneuvered, out-published and, according to many sales figures, even out-sold LCD in virtually of the leading projector vertical market segments. I say "virtually" because there are some markets in which DLP hasn't been playing ? but when it does, it generally wins.
...Read More »
Have you Crossed the Chasm?
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore is probably the single most important book to read as a ProAV system salesperson (or systems designer) today! It is, in my opinion, the blueprint for the customer sales and marketing process of AV technology. When it was published in the early 1990s it was geared toward the computer industry. Its prophecies, however, are now becoming a reality in the ProAV market of today.
...Read More »
InfoComm -- Good Show Means Great Market
InfoComm 2005 was a great show for the ProAV industry and the future of our market. Here?s why.
...Read More »
Live From infoComm: Attendance Record Broken
ICIA announced another record attendance here at the show this week, with a more than 10 percent increase over last year, totaling 25,821 as of Thursday. Expect the final numbers to be even more impressive. Also, it?s that time of year again. The year is half way over and it?s time to review my 2005 predictions.
...Read More »
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