Solutions for tomorrow!
Well 2009 has been an
eventful year for us at Future Software, it’s not been easy due to
the state of the economy, but as usual this has not stopped us!
I thought I’d highlight a few of the more interesting events that
have happened within the company during the past year.
Awards:
Best way to end a demo
This would not have been quite so funny if we had not got the deal! Picture the scene:
We were doing a demonstration to a MAJOR prospect, we were running eight 20” screens
and three 42” screens, most were synchronised and we had an audience of about ten people.
The demo is going well; we are in the final Q&A part, when one of our creative team goes
behind the set up to get something from a laptop bag – he manages to trip on one of the
lines and this pulls the main power supply out, shutting EVERYTHING down instantly!
The Award goes to BIGFOOT in our Creative Team!! It’s a testament to the quality of
the kit, as when we got back to our demo room we put it all together and it booted up
all working perfectly – first time.
Amateur Photographer of year
For changing the company name from Imago to “nago” in the publicity pictures! The person who
took the publicity pictures for Imago managed to get the head of one of the hand shakers in
the way of part of the company logo thereby instantly renaming his company “nago”!!
The Award goes to - Bavid Dailey!!
Demo kit competition
We have, over the year, had what started as a friendly competition, but has now become
a little more serious. Comparisons have been made to the cannon run at the Royal Tournament,
for those of you old enough to remember, although to our knowledge no fingers have been lost so far!
The competition is to see which team of two employees can assemble our standard demo kit the fastest!
The record now stands at 15mins 32secs set by Tom and Chris on December 3rd in Manchester!
There have been some disgruntled, muffled comments of doubt as this was not witnessed, and so far
Chris and Tom have refused to repeat the feat, in laboratory conditions back in the office!!
This 15:32 time is no mean achievement when you consider that the goalpost setup consist of 2 posts,
a cross bar, 8 screens and a flight case of 11 system units that have all to be connected and powered
up before the clock can stop.
Milestones:
ISE in Amsterdam
We attended ISE in Amsterdam, in February. Here we helped our friends at Panasonic,
by running DigiSHOW on one of their 64” Plasma screens. We set the screen up in portrait
mode and then played a full HD video scaled back, in to the top third of the screen, a
flash file in the large middle section, with various drinks offerings from their bar and
at the bottom of the screen we showed a slide show of various formats of still images –
all simple and standard functionality from our product!
We had our own small but perfectly formed stand at IBC 2009 in Amsterdam, in September.
This is the largest annual broadcast exhibition outside the US. We worked hard and gained
a lot of high quality leads, as it seemed the time wasters could not afford to attend the show!
We showed off our synchronisation skills as well as the usual high quality, easy to use,
flexible Windows interface. We also managed to communicate messages with the staff of a
neighbouring stand, which gained us various drinks from their bar over the five days...I
love the way I can instantly order a coffee (read beer) with our easy to use ticker!
Quividi Adoption
Following some serious testing and a small amount of tweaks to our software we announced
that we can run Quividi’s audience recognition and measuring tools and have added it to
portfolio of products.
Please click
here for the press release.
DigiSHOW Software Updated
The version number started the year at 3.42 and we are now shipping version 3.70 – The DigiSHOW
development team have continued, as usual in the background, to expand and enhance the range of
products, we have just released the latest version 3.70 into the market – our solution just keeps
getting stronger and stronger!
Please click
here for the software home page.
New Roof
We are now very smart with our new roof and all feeling a lot happier when the wind and rain are
giving it what for outside. No more furtive glances towards the ceiling, just waiting for the
outside to come in uninvited!
Atom Processors
Introduced Atom based processors – Intel launched the Atom based processor and we have adopted
them for some of our solutions. We have an Atom based, small footprint unit that will use less
power, but still allows for high functionality from our product...making the investment from our
end user smaller but the output stronger.
Please click
here for information on the ActiveSIGN
or click here for information on the EDGE.
Creative Team
Introduced our Creative Team – We have introduced into the company a new team of guys who can offer
creative services, not only for our own in house uses for various software and hardware solutions...
but it is now a hugely valuable service that our reseller channel can offer out to their customers.
Please click
here for more information on the creative team.
Business Development Manager
Brought in Business Development Manager - The less said about this the better!
Signed new UK distributor
Imago Group PLC have been appointed our distribution reseller for the UK, with a view to
increasing the number of resellers that see our product. The aim is to authorise a
sensible number of resellers that will get our full support, training and assistance
in the deals they are working on. At the same time, we will be raising the profile
of the Future Software range of digital signage products and selling the EDGE product,
which is a great base to sell our advanced networking solution DigiSHOW from.
Please click
here for the press release.
Chris Fulton was 50 this year
The owner of the company turned 50 in August...much to his shock/glee/consternation – He’s doing well on it really!
Statistics
We carried out 144 demonstrations, 30 webinars, and covered about 11,000 Miles in the company white van during the year –
it’s a sturdy beast, which takes us around Europe and the UK, rattling, when we have not packed it properly, to various
demonstrations, exhibitions and promotional events, not to mention the sandwich shop at lunchtimes occasionally!
No figures have been gathered as to how many Yorkie Bars we’ve consumed!
SDIX Launched and installed
Our Broadcast products were expanded by launching and installing in a well known national broadcaster our new SDIX.
The SDIX offers playback of full SDI or SDI HD with synchronisation which is field, not frame, accurate of up to
five streams at a time! A powerful piece of kit that the broadcasters are lapping up!
Please click
here for more information on the DigiSHOW SDIX.
Quotes:
From an experienced campaigner in the digital signage/AV market "I have
not seen anything that does what you do so easily or so well –
It’s brilliant!"
From a reseller who sells (used to sell) a competitive product "I wish I’d known about this before I had installed xxxx product at xxxx
major corporate) in London."
From another reseller who sells (used to sell) a competitive product
"Well this is a grown up product then isn’t it!"
A telephone conversation had between two ex colleagues whilst one was attending a demonstration with us the other one said
"Yes I have installed DigiSHOW before, about four years ago,
it’s the Rolls Royce of digital signage products!"
During one of Chris Fulton’s usual enthusiastic webinars to one of our resellers and four people at a clothing retailer –
"Chris...Chris...CHRIS – STOP STOP we’ve seen enough, it’s great, it does all we want and more, we are going to buy, but
we have to go to another meeting now!!’ Two days the order confirmation arrived!
Customer we have not heard from for over 4 years, rang to ask for training as staff had changed!! The third party that had
been managing this installation was no longer involved, but the kit was still performing!