„The trend is moving away from expensive PC-based hardware“

Since autumn 2018 the market for media players has a problem: necessary processors from Intel are more and more often in short supply. Mike Finckh, Managing Director of Munich-based value-added distributor Concept International, talks about the difficult market development, alternatives for integrators and possible trends in 2020.

invidis: Mr. Finckh, in 2018 demand for Intel CPUs exceeded supply by far. Has the situation eased somewhat in 2019?

No – it unfortunately intensified. Meanwhile, Intel has admitted the supply bottlenecks in an open letter and, according to its own assertions, is investing heavily to be able to meet the demand for 14 nanometer chips of the Core-i series up to generation 9. We also frequently use both types in our Digital Signage PCs, but it has to be expected that the situation will not improve quickly. Unfortunately, the tenth generation, which is produced in ten nanometers, is also very slow to gain momentum with a delay of almost three years.

What are the alternatives for integrators?

We can hardly make longer-term delivery commitments for larger roll-outs for Intel-based systems. Therefore, we recommend AMD-based Windows systems on the one hand and Android-based players on the other. As a result, we see about 30 to 40 percent less sales with Intel CPU-based systems. For some high-profile projects we sometimes get special CPU allocations. For these cases we can still offer the established Intel systems.

How do your customers react to the situation?

Our experience has shown that customers react with understanding and constructively if they are informed early on and transparently about delivery bottlenecks. And that’s what we did – it was definitely positive for us. We always handle things this way, for instance when a faulty SSD firmware needs to be replaced on players that are already in use.

How will the market develop in 2020?

Android is definitely a topic in the digital signage market. We sell more and more players with Android-OS. First of all, there are price reasons for this: The license costs are zero. And maintenance and security are also noticeably good with Android. On the one hand, there are fewer major updates, if any, than with Windows, for example. Every six to twelve months, Microsoft pushes several GB of data downloads onto the players. On the other hand, there are much fewer viruses or other exploits.

„ Android has evolved into a powerful, reliable operating system also for business use.“

In addition, there is the practical component for interactive applications or PoS touchpoints: The Android GUI is familiar to many users from their smartphones and tablets. At the same time Android has evolved into a performant, reliable operating system also for business use. Digital signage software providers are also reacting to this trend. Nearly all of them have released player software that runs on Android.

And thus the trend is moving away from expensive, bulky PC-based hardware. Cheaper hardware derived from smartphones is making its way into digital signage PCs. For our top-selling DN73 from Giada, for example, we rely on CPUs with ARM architecture. These chips cost considerably less than CPUs from Intel or AMD, so we can offer the Giada DN73 for as low as 100 euros.

Concept is not just a hardware distributor, but also a project and service partner. What can the market expect from you?

From the very beginning it was clear to us that we must not only be seen as hardware box movers. Project-specific services, where we assemble the players for high volume digital signage projects, and deliver them ready to play, are daily routine for us. We call this offer the „Total Preperation Package“. We also advise many of our customers on the best hardware configuration for their needs, both in terms of use case and price. At the same time we are good networkers and are happy to open doors to the most relevant and best software suppliers and display manufacturers.

„ What the customer or system integrator doesn’t need at all is that the hardware and software supplier don’t talk to each other.“

Thanks to this in-depth market and product expertise, for many year we have discussed difficult cases on a regular basis directly and cooperatively with our business partners, including major digital signage software houses such as Grassfish, Easescreen, STiNO, dimedis and ScreenFOOD. What the customer or system integrator doesn’t need at all is that the hardware and software suppliers don’t talk to each other or that the one puts the problem on the other. This is how we have successfully got all projects „flying“ in the past. Since we act as a project partner and not only as a hardware supplier, we can actually play in the large volume game. In my view, this strategy is the key to long-term success in the digital signage market.