Preset DSE Mixer: Sponsor/Partner Profiles – Harris, Coxcom

February 24, 2012 by Dave Haynes

The profiles continue as the days count down on The Preset Group DSE Mixer. If you didn’t get a program at the door, we’re rattling through all the sponsors and tech partners who are helping make the annual pre-DSE networking event come together.

Sponsor – Harris

Harris is a massive company with a big broadcast wing, and in the last three or four years has been growing a digital signage business unit, driven by its acquisition of the InfoCaster authoring and management software first developed by a Canadian company, Inscriber. It was really, really nice software even eight or nine years ago when I first fiddled with it, and it has evolved substantially since then.

Harris started primarily marketing that platform but now does the full meal deal thing, having developed a huge amount of experience rolling out that 7-11 network announced a year ago. There are already 4,300-plus sites up, which means the Harris project manager team has been turning a new one on just about every business hour for the past year. Crazy.

Harris is doing something called a “hospitality suite” on the DSE floor, which it says will allow the crew to  “more closely engage with customers and offer one-on-one demonstrations of our comprehensive solutions for retail, hospitality, sports, live entertainment and other businesses.”

I also think that means they will have a fridge again, which I gleefully raided for a beer last year after about six back-to-back meetings. Thanks again Carre!

Hospitality suite demonstrations, Harris noted in some PR yesterday, include capabilities to host and support a new interactive web application for Harris® InfoCaster™ software.  The embedded application incorporates HTML5 language and dynamic Flash technology to create a true interactive experience for consumers engaged through digital signage.  Customers in retail environments, for example, can launch a web browser to locate items for sale in the store — creating an immersive brand experience that links the in-store and online experiences. 

Denver-based Denise MacDonell, the general manager for Harris Digital Out-Of-Home, won’t be there. She’s very pregrant, I’m told.

Sponsor – Coxcom

Coxcom might not be all that well known south of the border, but in my parts, they are pretty much the go-to guys for experienced, expert-level digital signage deployment. The Cineplex guys sing the Toronto company’s praises, and that’s a well-qualified endorsement.

A big part of what the company does is commercial satellite dish install work, but they have also done many or most of the higher profile digital signage network deployments in Canada, including Walmart.

They do both the project management work and the hang and bang installs. I’ve known the key guys for a bunch of years, particularly their biz dev guy David Spence.