Review: Scala Conference 2010

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At this year’s Scala Connected Signage Conference, held in Amsterdam earlier this summer, guest speaker presentations, a number of digital signage exhibitors and a wealth of Scala company and product updates came together. Scala demonstrated its new Scala Release 5.1 software that supports Windows 7, as well as Scala Quickstart, its simplified SaaS offering for smaller businesses.
 
Gerard Bucas, CEO of Scala, opened the event by discussing Scala’s current position in the market and their expectations for the coming year, emphasising that Scala’s strengths in the economic crisis have been that they are a highly diversified company in terms of the geographical spread of their business and vertical markets of their customers.
 
2009 did see the first drop in sales for Scala since 2002, but Bucas was proud to add that the first quarter sales in 2010 were ahead of those in 2009, and that March 2010 was actually the highest sales month for Scala ever.
 
Germany over the past year has proved to be a strong growth market for Scala; they achieved a 25% sales growth here in 2009. Historically, Scala have always been very strong in Scandinavia – in 2009, Norway ranked second after the USA in terms of sales – and recent projects have reaffirmed this, as well as the fact that the company has now appointed Rune Løbersli as new VP of the Nordic region. France and Denmark were also areas where they expected growth in the future.
 

SignChannel, Scala’s most recent acquisition, was much lauded as a means of addressing the lower end of the digital signage market and simpler installations needs with a SaaS offering.
 
Presentations included a European market overview and latest business trends and developments in digital signage from Florian Rotberg, invidis consulting; a discussion of Scala’s project with a Norwegian bookstore chain from Kari Andreassen, Thanke/Libris; and a presentation discussing the digital signage network recently installed at the RAI Amsterdam, by Bret Baas. There were also a number of banking deployments presented, a market which has seen an increase in digital signage projects over the past few years.
 
A number of digital signage companies also exhibited their products and services to Scala’s partners at this event, including Advantech, AOpen, Christie and TruMedia.