First Comes Google, Then Comes Cisco, Who’s in the Baby Carriage?

Just a short little post:

There’s been a lot of hyperbole from the media over the past little while about the big players finally entering what we’ve all known for some time as a fantastically deep business opportunity in Digital Signage, Content and Advertising.

Big market entrants are a very good thing for all of us. They’re providing the validation, traction and attention to our industry that we could not generate on our own over the last 5+ years. It’s healthy competition and it will be great for all of us.

Funny enough, it’s all just different approaches to the same problem.

Cisco – we all know why they’re in it (networking) and they will be desperately needed as this roles out because the current infrastructures aren’t built to handle what we’re about to throw at them.

Google – Advertising and distribution. They haven’t actually declared themselves “in it” – just a patent application and some rhetoric. It’s a big ship to turn with a lot of very big, angry companies and people starting to gun at their hull. Will the same old google model work for this industry? My vote is no, at least not the way their existing business runs (far be it for me to question “one” of the large media conglomerates though – FYI did you know OMD, the largest media buying company in the world, does 10 Billion a year in North America?)

The point of this post, however, is not to welcome these 2 cats in to our world, it was what I started getting whispers about going on behind the scenes after the aforementioned companies both opened up the kimono.

The Baby Carriage in this story:
Now here, I get to be like my prom date and I can only tease you….NDAs, sworn to secrecy and all that. Sorry. There are some VERY big plays going on behind the scenes and deal brokering that I’m pretty excited about. A number of companies have been very quietly putting deals together to spring on the market. Announcements that will really start to kick this business into gear. My guess is; expect a bunch of cool announcements starting in June, so the fall should be a good time of year for us all.