AOpen Forum and ISE 2012 attendance breaking records

Feb. 7, 2012 - PRLog -- The week started on Monday 30 January with the AOpen Forum 2012: “Bringing Digital Signage Business Together” with 118 digital signage experts, resellers, integrators and partners. The AOpen Forum attendance grew with 25% compared to last year while the ISE that took place from 31 January to 2 February hit an attendee increase of just over 17%.

AOpen looks back on a successful 3rd edition of the AOpen Forum 2012. Together with partners such as Intel, BlueFox, Broadsign, Net Display Systems, Online Software, Philips, Vision Robotics and Windows Embedded the program of the day was educative and inspiring.

The conference began with a visionary keynote by Bernie Tsai, President & CEO AOpen Inc. In his speech he highlighted the importance of partnerships and cooperation underlining the theme of the day "Bringing Digital Signage Business Together". Sam Bellamy, Channel Sales Manager EU from Intel then took the stage to provide a detailed view of channel opportunities and introduced new concepts that Intel is looking to deliver in close cooperation with AOpen in Europe. Guest speaker Adrian Cotterill, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief DailyDOOH talked about his perspective on the future of Digital Signage including a look back at 2011. His ideas gave the audience some food for thought.

In the afternoon, several sessions were led by prominent industry speakers/experts:
Andrea le Vot (Bluefox), Dennis Stutterheim (Microsoft), Bjorn Pieper and Peter de Jong (NDS) and AOpen's own Stephen Borg and Vincent van der Meer. Topics discussed were: software, content, hardware and actual installments. Both commercial and technical items were part of the agenda.

During one of the last sessions the AOpen Forum sponsors were invited to sit in the Ask the Expert Panel which was led by Chairman Adrian Cotterill. The session sparked a lively, cordial debate amongst the panelists. Afterwards the audience was really enthusiastic with this approach.  

The conference concluded with the AOpen Best Project Award handed out to System Integrator Magit in Poland, who is leading a project for the ING bank in Poland across 450 branches including 520 AOpen Digital Engines. They have finished with the first 70 branches and installed an interactive terminal, a kid’s corner with touch displays, a video wall and audio per branch location. Overall a good innovative project that was rewarded with the AOpen Best Project Award.  

Last but not least the day ended with drinks and dinner and a lot of networking. Feedback from our customers was really positive saying that they especially enjoyed the agenda which was educative and therefore useful. Adrian Cotterill concluded that the event was “Damned successful and a great deal of fun”.

Integrated Systems Europe and Digital Signage powered by AOpen

Integrated Systems Europe started on Tuesday and lasted three full days. Even though Amsterdam was experiencing the coldest weather in centuries: ISE still managed to break all records of attendance. AOpen being represented in the Digital Signage Hall 10 on booth 10N129.

AOpen sketched a real-life hospitality/retail environment scenario of a coffee shop. Visitors could order their cup of coffee or tea at the order kiosk and pick up their order at the barista. The visitors name and order choice appeared at the pick up desk, so the barista knew what to make and serve. Although AOpen did not have the biggest booth: it sure was the busiest and most visited one in the area because of the coffee shop setup and the good coffee! AOpen showed visitors the possibilities of the beautiful and powerful products, powered by AOpen Digital Engine media players and the new WarmTouch touch-display series with integrated PC technology.

According to Alexander Pivovarov, CEO of Adissy a value added distributor of AOpen in Russia: "We live in a very exciting time of global digitalization. The digital signage and DOOH markets are growing rapidly and the ISE 2012 was perfect proof of that. To keep such pace it's important not only to rely on reliable components like AOpen's digital engines, it’s also important to be in the center of the digital whirlpool. At ISE this center was at AOpen's booth, very crowded with new and existing customers and partners and providing very warm and friendly atmosphere for business talks."

Furthermore AOpen Digital Engine media players were also used at AOpen partners’ booths across the exhibition floor such as: Philips, BlueFox, DISE, Friendlyway, Net Display Systems, Dimenco, Haivision, NEC and Chilin.

On the last day of the ISE, AOpen’s own Gabriëlle Offringa, Marketing Manager AOpen Europe presented on Digital Signage combined with Interactive/Social Media. According to Gabriëlle: this trend of DS combined with interactivity and social media will see an enormous growth these coming years thanks to Apple’s touch products. Visitors of this session walked away inspired about the endless possibilities that are already in our reach today.  

For more information about AOpen products visit www.aopen.com or e-mail digital_signage@aopen.com.

If you want to stay up to date with the AOpen technologies and events, then please register for the AOpen Quarterly Newsletter http://www.aopen.nl/News_Newsletter.aspx.

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AOpen, Inc. has more than 15 years of IT hardware manufacturing experience along with keen insights into IT industry trends that help drive the continuous development of high-end products specifically designed for the digital signage industry.

As the leading manufacturer of reliable, powerful and green digital signage solutions world-wide, combined with the unique small form factor of the specially designed media player called Digital Engine, AOpen is able to provide an outstanding platform for 24/7 digital signage solutions. The AOpen Digital Engine® is the company’s flagship product and is recognized as the world’s smallest semi-industrial media player with such strong capabilities. With in-depth market knowledge and a team of industry experts AOpen can offer advice for complete digital signage solution platforms. AOpen cooperates with key alliances to create the best possible tested and certified solutions to offer to its global value added channel network to go to market.