It’s never specifically been AVI-SPL’s public intention to set trends, but it sure seems like they do it fairly often.

The company, our 2011 Integrator of the Year, was one of the early adopters into the A/V-IT convergence movement and was on the forefront of the push for video conferencing. Now it’s blazing another new trail with its latest acquisition.

By adding Dayton, Ohio-based Iformata Communications, including video network operations center (VNOC) infrastructure and facilities and the VNOC Symphony platform, AVI-SPL is positioned as the only solutions provider to offer both AVNOC and VNOC services.

“We needed to get beyond the four walls of the conference room and understand the infrastructure,” says Mike Brandofino, AVI-SPL’s executive vice president of video and unified communications, who oversees the support services group now joined by Iformata’s 40 employees. “This was a piece we felt was missing.

“We had a gap in being able to provide remote monitoring so we had to unify. This will allow us to ultimately position with our customers that everything is connected to the cloud. We see that as being the future,” he says.

Scott Allen, who was Iformata CEO and is now senior vice president of managed services architecture at AVI-SPL, says the companies started talking in April, when Iformata had been seeking outside financing.

The conversations moved on to talk of a partnership, then possibly having AVI-SPL buy a portion of Iformata before eventually advancing to the full purchase, a decision that came a month or so ago.

“We need to be able to service tens of millions of systems, not just a few,” Allen says. “This will certainly allow us to reach those goals. (AVI-SPL) has a powerful sales force. There were lots of ways we could have gone, but this seemed to make the most sense.”

Founded in 2004, Iformata is considered a leader in VNOC tools and end-to-end automation services through its VNOC Symphony platform. Iformata’s portfolio includes call setup, intelligent framing, automated monitoring, event correlation, and call teardown.

With Symphony, Iformata uses what it calls a cloud super-structure, allowing video endpoints to be managed in the cloud, Allen says.

The addition of Iformata’s VNOC service to AVI-SPL’s Unify ME offering provides a more robust total managed services solution to customers.

“With the acquisition of Iformata, we become one of the only video solutions providers who can truly provide every aspect of the video communications experience,” says Brandofino, AVI-SPL executive vice president of video and unified communications. “The fact that we design, build and now provide VNOC managed services across any video platform clearly differentiates us from anyone else in the space.”

About the author

D. Craig MacCormack

Craig MacCormack is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years experience covering local and national news and sports as well as architecture and engineering. He joined Commercial Integrator in January 2011. Follow him on Twitter: @CraigMacCormack.

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