Video Consolidation

I've been spending a lot of time talking to channel partners as well as manufacturers and building upon my understanding of the greater market.

As we wait to hear the final news about TAA... it makes me think about why there isn't other consolidation?

This isn't short term..I wonder who's going to buy who this quarter..but more longer term thinking.

If you're in the video business and you've got engineers on staff with experience in building av i/o, a/v switching, UI, base platforms, audio codecs, or video codecs... why not look at greater value through scale? Why shouldnt a Polycom be merged with digital signage player such as Symon? Or why shouldn't TAA merge with a IPTV player like PRN? Or why doesn't PLCM buy up some other audio companies like AudioCodes, Digium, or I3? Or maybe Sony should buy Clearone?

I think there is so much unrealized value out there. Think about it... why should TAA spend time working on h.264 code and PRN do the same? Or PLCM spend time on some audio codec that I3 needs as well. Not to mention the back end business aspects that are redundant across so many companies.

Bob & Mike over at PLCM really need to take some action and show that they want to keep running the company or intend to sell it. If your competitor is going to merge with a telephony partner, should you? Does being "me too" get you to the finish line before everyone else? Only if you can execute better. Maybe taking a different approach might work? Most of the resellers of video conferencing also do AV work. They all have not only greater revenue streams at selling AV then they do at VTC, but also fatter margins.

A great example...in higher end VTC rooms, they typically install a AMX or Crestron controller. $15K or more can be spent just on that aspect of the room. (I really need to blog about my thoughts on why this is necessary...another time). I don't know the size ofthat market (might be good to research), but it appears quite rich.

Why not complementary technologies? Digital Signage for one. Its at least $2.7B in size. Its complementary technology (from the building block level). While, it might not complimentary on the sales side, it would give you scale on the engineering side. IPTV could be another, and so, on.