BrightSign [1], Broadsign, Brightspace, Broadsystems – phew!
We wish newcomers to the market would be a little bit more careful with product naming, anyway yesterday Roku [2], a Saratoga, CA. based provider of products for the digital sign market announced a line of BrightSign solid-state media players…
BrightSign Platform
Roku BrightSign media players offer the playback quality of a PC platform, and the ease of installation and use of a solid-state player. Specifically designed for digital signage applications, BrightSign is fully scaleable from a simple one-screen implementation in a small store to a multi-screen, multi-site managed installation. At the entry level, a media file is simply read from a flash memory card and starts looping playback as soon as the unit is switched on. For more advanced implementations, BrightSign offers interactivity via buttons, touch screens, mice, keyboards as well as multi-channel audio switching and scripting services. BrightSign players are compact and easy to use. Unlike PCs, they have no moving parts and no full-scale operating system, making them more reliable than other playback solutions.
They also opened, what they call a “European Office” in Cambridge.
Those Californians don’t know the United Kingdom or Cambridge very well then do they? We don’t know too many companies having a “European” Office in Cambridge.
Perhaps Pierre Gillet, previously Sales and Marketing as well as Country Manager for Matrox Electronic Systems who has been appointed Vice President of European Sales for Roku lives near by?
As we always say, if you are a US company looking to gain a foothold in Europe why would you open up an office in the United Kingdom – be on the continent in Amsterdam or somewhere else where there are good road, rail and air links to the rest of Europe!
2 Comments To "Roku Announce BrightSign"
#1 Comment By Barnaby Page On 29 April 2008 @ 12:33 @564
I dunno – thanks to Stansted airport, Cambridge is probably a pretty good choice. Plus there’s a great pool of tech people to hire from.
#2 Comment By Darryl On 15 May 2008 @ 11:04 @503
Good luck to Roku. I’m not sure if Adrian has ever visited Cambridge but he must have had his eyes closed throughout the visit.
Cambridge is home to some of the worlds biggest players in the software, computer and multimedia markets. Even in the past companies like Sinclair Research and Acorn (BBC B Computer) where also located there. Has anyone out there ever heard of Microsoft, VNC, Adder Technology, ARM (home of the RISC processors), Nokia……visit Silicon Fen and you may learn something as well as being in the middle of a huge pool of high calibre sales, marketing and technical development resource. Good luck to them and don’t push foreign investment to other European countries…..