Editor’s Note: This op-ed about supporting and approving modules, plugins and drivers reflects the views of its author and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Commercial Integrator, its editors or its publisher. We updated it most recently on October 18, 2024.
What follows is a tale of lost margins in the AV industry, but it’s best viewed through the lens of the cinematic masterpiece “And Justice For All.”
In this Oscar-winning 1979 film, Jeffrey Tambor, in a supporting role to Al Pacino, plays Jay Porter, a Baltimore defense attorney. He goes crazy after his acquittal of a defendant leads to the death of two children. Ultimately, Porter shaves his head, has a dish-breaking nervous breakdown for the ages and is dragged away screaming enroute to a straitjacket tailor.
The movie ends with Pacino outside the courthouse as Tambor, with a bad toupee, walks past Pacino. He lifts the toupee like a hat, says “Good day” and returns to lawyering like nothing ever happened. No one did anything to fix the problem. Pacino is incredulous.
Heed This Message
These days, we spend lots of time talking about user experience, quality of work, ecosystems, best practices and every cliché we can drag to the selfie-filled InfoComm show floor. But we never discuss the one thing that’s imperative for all this to happen: profit margins.
And one of the biggest daggers to the heart of integrators’ profits is the amount of time it takes to make various products work well together.
Wither go the margins?
It starts if suppliers don’t support their products with approved modules, plugins and drivers. In simple terms, these are blocks of code created so control systems can send commands to the myriad devices in a room or building. Turn on a display. Initiate a video call. Route a signal. Dim the lights. The only way that a control system can do this is via a module, plugin or driver.
To this end, manufacturers provide the industry with an application programming interface (API) that gives programmers the protocol needed to develop commands so the control system can operate all the devices in a room or building from a single user interface, such as a touchpanel or an iPad.
More to the point, these are the communicative linchpins to successful projects, allowing reliable communication between devices. This is as critical to a project’s success as a laptop and two hands. In fact, our price to program a system can increase if we see your product on the drawings and can’t find a sanctioned module, plugin or driver for it. And we actually warn integrators: This product might be a bit painful, so plan extra time in the field.
Modules, Plugins and Drivers Created Out of Necessity
Here’s the problem: Some modules, plugins and drivers are created out of desperate necessity by field programmers to do simple tasks: for example, toggle power. Some are created by independent firms that then offer them to our industry — sometimes free and some for a fee. Some get the manufacturer’s support. (And this is critical because it means the developer is in constant contact with the manufacturer to stay apprised of changes to a product’s firmware.)
So, what happens when those modules, plugins and drivers are not manufacturer-supported? Bad things.
One little change in a product’s firmware and these critical linchpins, created without manufacturer backing, will stop working. That means a project’s functionality stops working reliably.
Read this scenario from a recent project for which my company was hired to provide controls programming and ask yourself if it sounds familiar:
A commercial videowall project for an enterprise customer (read that as “millions to spend on AV annually”) features 40 video sources to 150 videowall endpoints. A touchpanel button routes a signal to a videowall window. Before that signal gets to the wall, it passes through Cat5 extenders, signal converters and then on to an encoder, sent over the client LAN, before landing at a decoder where it now finds its way to an input at the videowall.
Simple, right? Wrong!
In this scenario, a signal would randomly not take. It worked yesterday but somehow not today. Then, it failed again, but with a different signal to a different videowall. Worse yet, none of it was replicable; therefore, troubleshooting was painful. We now have equipment from one manufacturer, controlled by another manufacturer, passing it through converters and extenders made by yet another manufacturer, traversing a network controlled by others, to land at a device made by — you guessed it — another manufacturer.
Chasing the Gremlins
As is always the case in these gremlin-chasing projects, integrators are on their own in the field, calling every manufacturer, sending log reports and program files, and waiting for support tickets and return phone calls.
Suddenly, integrators are on day nine of a five-day commission — and it’s still not working. Field engineers must now stay extra (unbudgeted) days to keep troubleshooting the problem. And that, right there, is the moment that margins disappear.
Before you know it, the end user and integrator have all parties on a call to discuss a plan to fix things. More unscheduled, unbudgeted time! More margins eaten away.
Soon, the integrator is having issues with the product at another site. Now, they’re calling my programming firm for alternatives. We’re small — and we already lost enough money trying to make the product get along with everyone else. So, we are careful quoting another project featuring that product. And we’ll always recommend another product we know is better supported.
Although the issue was not easily replicated in this project, the culprit soon became clear: The module used to route the signals to the encoders and decoders was no longer supported.
The solution to our scenario? Long after we started to commission the system, the manufacturer released a sanctioned module. And while we had to eat a couple days’ work to incorporate the new module, it finally helped closed the job.
Total unbudgeted days and nights at the site? Twelve. Ouch.
But this resolution doesn’t happen often enough in our industry because good modules, plugins and drivers can be costly to develop and maintain. (Not as costly as losing an enterprise customer, mind you.)
Modules, Plugins and Drivers: Development and Maintenance
Heed these words: Whether you’re a manufacturer, integrator or other channel partner, your reputation is on the line every day, at every job. For suppliers, few things will elevate that reputation more than hiring people to do nothing but develop and maintain your modules, plugins and drivers. And in the process, you’re helping your partners protect their margins.
Make the investment and then promote that investment. Get people to take their inevitable trade show selfies in front of a sign at your booth that says, “We get along with everyone!”
Do it. Otherwise, integrators will be looking for alternatives, and hungrier-than-you competition will beat you to the punch. It’s not an option to go back to what you’ve always done, acting as though nothing ever happened.
Marc LaVecchia is president of BMA Software Solutions.