Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Whilst our (more) regularly updated list of top 30 Digital Signage vendors is the post that gets read 100′s times a day (and vendors on it are always happy to tell us that they receive leads, RFPs and web traffic from) we do like to filter that 30 down into a top #DSTop10 once a year.
BroadSign have, once again, impressed us mightily over the past 12 months (even with their Chapter 11 moment) and have retained top spot for the second year in a row.
The full #DSTop10, in order (with last year’s position in parentheses), is as follows: -
- BroadSign (1)
- SignageLive (=5)
- ComQi (formerly EnQii and last year’s #2)
- Real Digital Media (new entrant)
- STRATACACHE (4)
- Scala (3)
- WireSpring (7)
- Omnivex (=5)
- Four Winds Interactive (new entrant)
- YCD Multimedia (9)
Out (through no fault of their own) are last year’s number eight, i.e. C-nario who were acquired by YCD Multimedia of course and last year’s number ten, i.e. Dynamax.
The annual list is intended as an objective, arm’s-length analysis of the strengths and overall offer of companies providing software, hardware and related services to clients running digital screen networks.
Several variables affect the selection of top vendors, including: global presence; management team; financial stability; track record; product roadmap and development team size; breadth of solution; customer service; and the sophistication of the technology options.
July 26th, 2012 at 19:59 @874
Opinion – Sadly, I feel this year’s list will do more harm than good as its currently presented. Especially with new entrants to the industry using this as a reference. In reality the top 10 should only contain 5 companies that are thriving. The rest truly remain on full life-support, critical watch, or dubious long term future.
Editor – Please help with defining your guidelines of objectivity? The number 1 company listed is also the paid banner advertiser of the same page without a reference note to such, and that company was subject of reorganization within the past 3 months.
Objective questions – Assuming we disregard territory by market vertical or geography, what companies have:
Delivered more than 25,000 paid licenses in 2011
Top line revenue of more than $20,000,000 US in 2011
Have not had to bring in new money/owners or refinance debt in 2010 or 2011
July 27th, 2012 at 12:46 @574
oh, it’s based on the ‘strengths and overall offer…’. Funny, it reads as if it is based on the amount of advertising and sponsorship of the DailyDooh! It certainly doesn’t really bare any relation to signage solution abilities etc.
July 27th, 2012 at 13:53 @620
ah Marcus, dear dear Marcus, one who hides under the cloak of anonymity whilst we indeed put our reputations on the line day in, day out to bring news and opinion on the industry.
We’ve been doing this for 5 years now, it’s an old chestnut – the advertiser / sponsorship vs editorial debate and it’s easy to liberally throw it at anyone who puts together a list.
Our DSTop 30 list shows in detail who’s advertised with us in the past, frankly it makes no difference to any of our lists and those in the list (and those NOT in the list know that) from the style we have year in year out.
BroadSign were number #1 in 2011 when they didn’t and never had advertised with us (they started site sponsorshop 1 July 2012).
ComQi,. Scala, Signagelive and STRATACACHE are all long time advertisers and supporters of what we do, no-one else in the list has ever paid us money.
We are happy to post your comment Marcus but next time, don’t be anonymous and don’t throw out accusations that simply can’t be substantiated.