Comments on: Our Top 10 Digital Signage Vendors Part 2

By: Brian Adams

Brian Adams — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:05:59 +0000

Adrian, I have worked in the education and financial industry for more than 20 years and there is one name that by far is being used more than any other in these industries (in the US) for digital signage applications and its Inlighten. They offer web and desktop software and hardware, content, network management all in a turnkey package. Scala makes good, but complicated, software and is far from a full-service compnay. They rely on all thrid parties to for value add and service. Cisco’s product is very simple and baiscally is a loss leader to sell network upgrades. Their product is a bandwidth hog and not realy a narrowcasting solution. You need to check inLIghten out. I work across the country and would say that 8 out of 10 prospects that I visit in the fiancial industry have an ongoing relationship with inlighten. They do everything from video walls to music on hold. I have access to industry private messge boards and inlighten is on their 10 to 1 over anyone you’ve mentioned.

By: Jeff Hackett

Jeff Hackett — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:13:32 +0000

This is a great list of the top 10 digital signage providers Adrian! I’m a Scala fan my self, and looking forward to my client’s deployment in the next couple weeks. I personally would have ranked them higher, but I can see this is an “international” ranking. Have you published a ranking exclusively for DSN providers in the United States?
I’m a retail consultant for banks, shopping centers and restaurants in the northwest and personally recommend John Ryan / Screen Red, Scala, and once in awhile Symon. I find banks, especially over the last couple years, have surprisingly been investing greatly in DSNs. I’ve run across a lot of great providers using RFID technology (one was called New Grounds, and Rise Soft). With banks, I heavily promote John Ryan / Screen Red – their content management is so far advanced and more user-friendly than other systems I have come across. I came across the aforementioned inLighten several times, and a company called StrandVision, and swapped them out each time with Screen Red. Both legacy systems are over-priced, lack a user-friendly interface, and (!) have a very mediocre web-site (and that’s being nice – check out the aforementioned web-site). Furthermore, these, and various other DSN companies I have come across lack large scale deployment capabilities. One of my clients wanted to deploy to 56 branches and … I think it was inLighten… didn’t have the capability to do so. Screen Red and Scala are great deployers!!!
I have a question – does anyone know of a good DSN provider for transportation (ie airports, bus terminals). I just locked down two new clients and I’m looking for a provider with great quantity of content?
Jeff Hackett

By: Gary Hiramoto

Gary Hiramoto — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:26:02 +0000

Your list of top digital signage providers does not include inLighten. Inlighten was founded in 1990. Today the company services over 1,000 financial institutions across the united states in thousands of locations. The company authors software for both desktop and web publishing of multimedia content. Producers hardware from single video outputs to fully integrated videowall solutions. In addition, the company provides complete content support, inlcuding live news, music, creative installation, etc. Your list is not valid without inLighten. InLighten is a private company with over nearly 100 employees, offering the most extensive and complete digital signage solutions. While companies like Scala produce software, they rely on third parties for field sales and support. Do not provide turn-key content or specialized creative and content developement support. Cisco while a large company has very little direct digital signage product. Their solution is geared around selling customers on spending significant monies on replacing out of date network solutions as their digital sgnage product is not a narrowcasting solution and is not practical for most real-world installations without serious bandwidth improvements worth many times more than the digital signage solution. These two and some of the other companies are good companies. However, inLighten provides the complete solution from software, hardware, content, consulting, installtion and service. inLighten is not the cheapest provider, but they just may be the best. Get to know them. http://www.inLighten.net

By: Isabel Gysels

Isabel Gysels — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:14:34 +0000

dZine is a key player in digital signage with an installed base of over 100.000 players worldwide. We deliver total solutions to our customers, not based on Windows. We are a devoted innovative company founded on a strong dedicated team of engineers. With its track record of over 15 years, dZine is rapidly expanding worldwide.
Why are some companies, only working on Windows PC based platforms mentioned in the list, while this was one of the criteria to be excluded from the list?
Maybe an updated list would be a good idea?
I would be happy to talk to you.

By: mark fleisher

mark fleisher — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:29:11 +0000

My company operates four ad supported networks including one in a large regional supermarket chain. We almost went with Broadsign because we agree that their software worked well. Also the SAAS solution made a lot of sense from a financial view point. However, the big stumbling block was Broadsign’s contract.

After shopping for software for two years and studying the various choices we never saw a contract so slanted against the customer. The biggest problem was the ownership of content. Broadsign’s contract said they would have the right to use all content we place on their servers. As a SAAS system that meant all of our content would become the property of Broadsign.

I am sure the bigger players were not presented with this kind of contract. But if they were, I am sure that stipulation was deleted. As a result, we were turned off by the Saas concept.

By: tim

tim — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:23:05 +0000

Hi,
i wonder why you did not mention the 42mediagroup…they are the by far biggest Player in Germany! They run the biggest Networks over here (Postbank, getTV, medimax, etc.)! I could imagine that they soon will spread out all over Europe…for now they seem to be focused on the german market, but this could change anytime soon!

In my opinion they need to be on your list!

By: Erez Turin

Erez Turin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:14:39 +0000

Hey Adrian — Isn’t it time to update the content of the list? According to your site YCD has made some major strides lately.

By: Clinton Gallagher

Clinton Gallagher — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:15:08 +0000

Hey, hey, hey let’s just hold on a minute. I got one in my basement I’m working on. How come I don’t count?

By: Phil Austin

Phil Austin — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:53:38 +0000

I have left a response on this. see http://www.dailydooh.com/archives/1268

By: Ahmed ElRidi

Ahmed ElRidi — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:54:25 +0000

Well, I am amazed of the positioning that you have above, specially when you are ranking companies based on the technology, not the proven track record of the installations.

We work with SCALA as a client in the GCC and believe me we have 1000+ players running in the field in more than 40 networks with 7 Banks (3 of them are nation wide) and we ca prove it if you need further info.