‘Convergence’ means that IT integrators are increasingly moving into AV territory. AV installers must fight back, says Bob SnyderIn his InfoComm presentations, Gary Kayye, chief visionary at Kayye Consulting, pointed out that 92% of AV installations by IT installers are network installations, while AV installers do less than 30%. In addition, 81% of digital signage installations are done by IT installers, and 68% of videoconferencing by those IT integrators.
Besides the sting of those statistics, this explains why IT integrators are pouring over the walls, spilling over into AV territory. It’s not rocket science – they’re just following the network across AV border lines. And they are scaling those walls in hordes because there are a lot more of them than there are of us. We show very little intent to follow the network into their IT world. If the battle for the AV customer was the World Cup, we’d be the own-goal scoring keeper.
For years, we have been calling this ‘convergence’ in the same way as some companies that get taken over try to call it a ‘merger’. It’s not convergence. IT has no intention to converge as it is already on the verge of rolling right over us in AV.
You could blame all this conflict on the commoditisation of video. The more popular video becomes, the more it is everywhere, and the more our business attracts IT resellers and distributors who thrive on selling volumes with low margins.
I mentioned last month that the best IT distributors make less than 8% profit, while the multitude of successful disties make closer to 2-3%. Also, there are a lot of less successful ones, teeter-tottering between +1% and -1%, spoiling the market for the rest of us.
