Kramer Electronics seems to be hitting its stride. Its VIA Collage solution — Kramer’s “single most successful product launch,” according to Michael DiBella — seems to be one of the endeavors defining the increasingly popular collaboration product category, and with its penchant for industry training it seems to be poised for being front and center at InfoComm 2015.
CI spoke to Michael DiBella, director of collaborative solutions at Kramer, about the VIA launch and what’s next for meeting space integration.
How successful has the VIA launch been, and how significant is the collaboration category for integrators?
It has been the single most successful product launch in the company’s history. VIA talks more to the end user than ever before in our industry. So from a selling perspective what I think motivates your core integrator is we finally have the opportu-nity to have a product line that speaks directly to the integrator and we’re also able to cross-market to the end user.
In terms of it being a fad, I don’t think so at all. There is more and more engagement that is always going to be necessary within corporate and educational institutions.
Hear from DiBella with the following video or read on below.
What is Kramer’s philosophy behind putting so many resources behind dealer training?
If you look at the most successful companies in any industry they took the time to train their channel or their consumer base. If you look at what Kramer brings to market it’s very complex technology.
The other piece is that it’s important to get in front of your customer. The more that we can teach our customer [integrators], it provides them with more opportunities to create revenue streams.
What’s next for meeting space integration?
If you look at the Millennials they’ve made a greater impact on corporate America than myself as a gen-Xer or my parents as Baby Boomers, meaning they have the ability to walk into a meeting with incredible technology in their cellphones, they video chat in their personal life, they’re sharing files in their personal life — all of this stuff came into the meeting space. They no longer want cubes, they want more social interaction. They live in a world of Facebook and Twitter where if they have a thought they get immediate feedback.
That is filtered down to the meeting space. We as manufacturers and your readership as integrators, we have to develop space to suit them and that psychological profile. Kramer is all in on huddle spaces.
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