If you notice a big smile on BTX Technologies president and CEO Greg Schwartz’s face when you visit booth 3901 at InfoComm 2017, there’s a good reason for it.
The company started by his father Joel in 1967, which he’s worked at for 25 years, is celebrating its 50th year at the show.
But don’t be fooled by the fact BTX’s larger-than-usual booth or the games, giveaways and even balloons: Schwartz and his BTX team are coming to Orlando to show off the latest and greatest in technology, starting with its BookIT room scheduling software and collaboration and AV over IP solutions.
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“We really want to take the time to say thank you to our customers and our partners,” says Schwartz. “It’s a whole different world from when this company started 50 years ago. A tremendous amount has changed. Fifty years is a monumental milestone, not one that a lot of companies reach. You have to have the right vendors, client feedback and products to do that.”
BTX’s booth will include its “extraordinarily intuitive” BookIT room scheduling solution that “allows integrators to get in and out,” and its multilingual capabilities, Mersive’s Solstice collaboration solution (including a new multi-room feature), Reach streaming and capture solutions, 4K over IP from Just Add Power, video wall software from Userful, digital signage solutions from IAdea and NDS, labor resource information and more.
According to Schwartz, BTX was among the first to offer collaboration software and started selling AV over IP solutions in 2012. “It’s totally come into its own now,” he says. “People have finally realized what a smart mode of transport it is.”
The booth will feature a live huddle room setting, showcasing a complete workflow to simulate the integration of various technologies to create what should be a seamless AV experience. Included are BTX’s BookIT display for room scheduling, transmitters, and receivers from Just Add Power, Mersive’s Solstice for in-room collaboration, a Reach Bee8 for streaming and recording, all within the ecosystem of a huddle room table from Middle Atlantic Products.
BTX will also showcase the Bee3 and Bee8 from Reach to offer a variety of solutions for video encoding, live streaming and VOD distribution from either a single appliance or a system wide configuration for the education, municipality, corporate, house of worship and healthcare markets. One of the industry’s leading technologists in the area of AV over IP will be on hand to give demonstrations and answer questions.
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Lecture capture and streaming “isn’t a specialty thing anymore,” says Schwartz. “It really is mainstream now.”
As much planning as the BTX team puts into planning its InfoComm booth, Schwartz knows there are always surprises at trade shows.
“You have to go into it thinking about what people will want to see first,” he says. “Customers can surprise you, though, so you have to be flexible. My father and my grandfather always told me, ‘It just takes one special thing at every show.’”
