Commercial Integrator Europe Q&A: Barco’s Bram Dieryckx discusses new opportunities

Manufacturer is currently expanding its market share in wireless presentation with ClickShare.

David Davies

As a stalwart of the visualisation technology sector, Barco requires little in the way of introduction. Commercial Integrator Europe sat down with direct product management representative Bram Dieryckx to discuss Barco products present and future.

To what extent is 2014 proving to be a robust year for Barco in the commercial integration market?

For Barco, 2014 is a year of building up our position in the commercial integration market for projection with the Present-series and growing our market share in wireless presentation with ClickShare. Within projection we are not one of the established players yet in the fixed install market segment and have historically focused more on other market segments such as digital cinema, events, simulation and virtual reality. [However we are now] successfully building up a global channel signing up distributors and resellers in this market segment. The success of ClickShare has really opened a lot of doors for us and resellers and distributors are enthusiastic about the products, technology and message that Barco is bringing them.

What would you say has been your most notable product launch of the year so far – and why?

At InfoComm, we launched the F50 projector, the most silent and compact high-end projector in the world. The F50 has the highest resolution in the compact projector market with WQXGA and Panorama resolution, offers the most advanced 120Hz 3D image processing, and the best optical projection engine. With a noise level down to 25dBA, this model is targeted at the high-end visualisation markets such as simulation, virtual reality and training. Later this year, we are launching a model targeted at the corporate installation market with a tailored pricing and feature set that delivers the best and most silent image quality in a very compact projector body. People were amazed about how we managed to get such amazing image out of an extremely compact projector.

Which specific segments are currently registering the most activity for Barco?

Barco has been very strong in the Entertainment market for many years. Within the entertainment segment, we are market leader in the Events and Digital Cinema market so for Barco these segments are still the largest. Within Corporate and Education, we are growing our presence fueled by the success of ClickShare and the Present-series projectors, so Barco is investing heavily both in product [and] in market development […of ] this market segment. With our recent acquisition of X2O media we now also have a strong foothold in
the education market.

What we can expect to see from Barco in the built environment during the rest of 2014?

We already gave a preview of some of the new products in our VIP suite at InfoComm. We are expanding and improving our Present-C range substantially later this year, planning to add products in the ClickShare suite, and adding connectivity to the Present-P series.

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