When Intel Corp. announced its Open Pluggable Specification (OPS) for digital signage media players in late 2010, their goal was to help make digital signage media players “as interchangeable as car stereos,” as Intel Director of Retail and Digital Signage Jose Avalos said in an interview last year.
It’s a natural progression in any technology segment to move from a landscape with few “standards” toward some kind of plug and play compatibility among hardware from different providers. But standards are always complicated, not in the sense of creating them but getting the market to buy in to them. (A “fragmented” market with few standards can provide fertile ground for integrators and design consultants’ services.) While a wild west climate can mean business for those who can navigate clients through it, industry standards are needed, and are inevitable. More standardization of the “media player” side of the industry will mean that providers can focus more energy on solutions rather than on operational hardware problems.
So how is OPS coming? Are there specific solutions out there using the approach? To find out, tune into the Webinar on Oct. 11 “OPS Digital Signage Development Simplified”.
