- by Lindsey Adler
The annual Sapphire Marketing Roadshow rolled into the Big Apple this week, at the Midtown Loft and Terrace, 4/26-4/27. There the crowded exhibits affirmed the popularity of regional trade events and their importance within the industry.
In a modern business environment with tighter budgets, regional events provide local opportunities to meet with manufacturers, as Tripp Lite’s Dennis Mariasis pointed out to me. These regional marketing shows offer fantastic opportunities for training, marketing, connecting with potential clients, and other networking.
Tripp Lite was exhibiting a self-contained, portable air conditioning unit that automatically evaporates condensation and removes it through exhaust. This means there’s no drain or water tank to install or empty, so the portable device is great to install in a wiring closet or server room.
Tripp Lite also had some nifty looking 90-degree HMDI power cords. These were interesting in that there was a hinge at the end of the connector that pops into a right angle for fitting the cord up close to a wall.
While there were over 25 exhibitors with a great deal of interesting new technologies, the most interesting product I discovered was the Anacore Synthesis display wall system. The new technology has only been out for about six months, director of sales Chip Maxwell told me, and it has already been deployed at an Eli Lilly facility in Indianapolis, IN, with plans for significant expansion in the works.
The interactive Synthesis platform is designed to maximize collaboration in an enterprise through multi-touch technologies integrated with existing business tools. The goal is to address common roadblocks to collaboration: engagement, retention, and consensus building. Through Synthesis, people can interact and contribute information through video, audio, images, and text from any location (with an internet connection). The system recognizes similar tagged material and can even alert users that someone else is working on a similar subject, allowing him or her to share their notes and work together.
Other technology highlights at the Sapphire event included the Vaddio WEBBi, a solo web-based server with a universal browser-based control panel to manage all of Vaddio’s recently introduced EasyUSB devices in a system. Users can adjust speaker and mic output levels, switch video sources, enable PIP, and control PTZ cameras.
