The IT and AV convergence topic is getting old. But what may be getting older is all of the talking going on with so little action. 

In a world where talk is cheap and action is everything, some integrators have found their way in the IT world while others have put their head in the sand and hoped IT was a passing trend.

Well it isn’t, but nonetheless the CIs of the world are still in vastly different places when it comes to making the journey from analog to digital and from bits to bytes. 

So let’s put your company on the market for a minute and see where you stand on the journey. Any of these familiar?

Sold: They have traded in their Extron tweaker for a Microsoft sticker and are on board with IT solutions. They no longer hire anyone that isn’t IT savvy, perhaps to a fault in which they no longer have anyone to fix the equipment they used to sell. This company never confuses Cisco Systems with Sysco Food services, but they may be offended if you did.

Sale Pending: This company loves the idea of IT and is making strides to move into the direction of playing the game. At least a few members of the company have legit IT credentials and aren’t afraid of the big bad IT Director. The biggest risk for this company is they think they are sold, but there sale is still pending. They need to know what IT projects they can handle and when they need to call in the big boys.

For Sale: If you were to ask the owner of this company about her stance on IT, she may in turn direct the exact same question right back at you. This organization knows it needs to be in the IT game, but hasn’t figured out exactly how to do it or where to start. They’ve conquered the basics like putting the AV systems on the network (with a little help from the end users network folks), but they are hardly building V-Lans. 

Short Sale: In this shop you would find the Crestron Programmer in tears that the RS232 connection was removed from the device in favor of an RJ45. They were able to get their own WI-FI up in their office, but don’t ask to use it if you drop by because only one person knows the password. 

Foreclosure: IT? This company isn’t even faking it. In fact, they may not know what IT (double-entendre) stands for.  This CI is so far behind the curve of the industries evolution hey are still using S-Video as the high quality option. I’d be willing to bet the owner of the company only finally started using touch-tone phones when he came to find out rotary phones were no longer available.

So what is the outcome? If you put your shop on the market, would you consider it sold on IT, in foreclosure or somewhere in between?

About the author

Daniel L. Newman

Daniel L. Newman, currently serves as CEO of EOS, a company focused on offering cloud based management solutions for IT and A/V integrators. Newman has spent his entire career in various integration industry roles. Most recently, he was CEO of United Visual where he led all day to day operations for the 60-plus-year-old integrator. He's also a contributing writer for Huffington Post.

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