Commercial Integrator August 2021 - 12

AV BRAINS & BRAWN
What the Convergence Misses
The convergence is often misapplied. To understand how technology has truly converged,
let's look at the differences between AV, IT and digital signage. by Alan C. Brawn
SIT BACK AND GRAB A HOT CUP or
a cold drink and (hopefully) enjoy the
discussion. This one is about those of us in
commercial AV, IT, and/or digital signage
... because it touches all of us (and our
customers) in one way, shape, or form. It
is about evolution and paradigm shifts in
technologies, and how digital signage is
ultimately different from both AV and IT,
while still embracing parts of the other
two. This is about the differences in each
practice (i.e., the objectives) that are not
covered in the overused (and often misapplied)
term convergence.
Suffice to say, that at some level AV and
IT have converged. For over a decade a
plethora of articles have been written about
the " need " for AV and IT to converge. I suggest
that while AV and IT frequently work in
unison at the infrastructure level, they have
not really completely converged and may
never fully do so. They are certainly tangential
to one another with varying amounts of
overlap. The point is that they are distinct in
their work processes. Let's begin by looking
at AV and IT as industries and groups of
technologies.
Historically the commercial AV industry
has focused on technologies, products and
systems.
From the 1980's to the mid 1990's the professional
audiovisual industry was driven
by individual technologies installed in an
environment, but typically isolated in scale
and scope. Since 2000, the commercial
" To be honest, there are some IT people who are experts
in AV and vice versa. I can already sense the emails of
disagreement coming my way! " - Alan C. Brawn
The pro AV industry is charged with the
creation, transportation, display, collaboration
and communication of information
to the intended audience. The goal of AV
integration is to give clients a full range of
total solutions from which to pick, and then
make the operation and communication of
audio and video seamless.
The growth we see today is directly
linked to the expansion of the internet
and IT networks, interfacing with all the
software and hardware in a digital world.
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Commercial Integrator AUGUST 2021
AV industry has been driven by expanding
communications, sharing of data, and
introducing collaboration and interactivity,
both internally and externally. This is where
IT comes into the picture.
One IT subject matter expert suggests an
inclusive definition; " Information technology
is the use of computers, storage,
networking and other physical devices,
infrastructure and processes to create, process,
store, secure and exchange all forms
of electronic data. " The Harvard Business
Review introduced the term information
technology to make a distinction between
purpose-built computers designed to
perform limited functions, and general-purpose
computing machines that could be
programmed for various tasks.
IT now embraces an array of technologies
and related disciplines. The foundation of
IT is still basic computer-based information
systems, including computing hardware,
operating systems, application software
and the data that is processed to produce
useful information.
Over time, each of these IT components
and functions has become more complex,
embracing ever-growing subsets of technologies
and methodologies. IT no longer
just happens locally; cloud computing
environments now complement and even
replace on-premises resources of the traditional
data center. All these developments
have made IT more complex and require
greater specialization and new roles and
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Commercial Integrator August 2021

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