- Symon Communications announced April 23rd that it has acquired Message-Link, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, a provider of digital signage systems for the hospitality and conference center industry. The acquisition advances Symons position in the digital signage arena, where it is leveraging its experience in employee communications, call-centers, and broadcast, while building its portfolio of digital signage content aggregation, content management, and systems integration. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
- Message-Link has been serving the visual communications needs of major hotels for over eighteen years. The addition of the Message-Link product line augments the Symon technology line-up with integration into event scheduling software applications to automatically retrieve and display event information throughout the day. The combined products enable digital devices such as plasma and LCD displays, and LED panels to be driven by software that broadcasts pertinent hotel and meeting room information to hotel guests and conference site visitors using integrated graphics and text with full-motion video.
- "This acquisition will be a great benefit for our customers, and couldn't be a better fit for our company," said Charles Ansley, president and CEO of Symon Communications. "The addition of Message-Link to our suite of digital solutions and real-time productivity tools allows us to offer integrated digital communications solutions to yet another exciting and large vertical market, the global hospitality industry."
- With the acquisition, Symon gains Message-Link's industry standard hospitality software interface, the Automatic Meeting Display (AMD), that increases efficiency and accuracy for presenting daily meetings and events to guest and visitors. Message-Link products include hotel guest room displays, big board plasma and LCD displays, event display boards and affordable door signage for meeting rooms. A complementary product also offers multiple layouts on a single plasma or LCD screen for a variety of information displayed concurrently in strategically placed areas of the property.
- "This venture is the right step for Message-Link," said Gus Sansone, who has served as Message-Link's president and founder. "We have been searching for a way to take our technology and people to the next level in the global delivery of visual communication products for the hospitality industry. With Symon, we accomplish that and more, offering our customers new capabilities and our employees exciting new opportunities." Sansone will continue with the company as Symon's president of hospitality solutions, based in Message-Link's St. Louis, Missouri office.
- Together Symon and Message-Link form a combination of skills, experience, technology and industry know-how. With millions of combined daily viewers in over 10,000 global locations, 400,000 hotel room installations in North America, and a full-blown complementary product portfolio, Symon and Message-Link incorporate the expertise and framework to offer the growing hospitality industry comprehensive world-class visual messaging solutions.
- Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Symon maintains direct sales and professional support offices as well as distributors worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.symon.com or call 972-578-8484.
