Commercial Integrator January 2023 - 21

Lone Star Communications on Its Name
The " Lone Star " part of LSC's name is, of course, a homage to Texas. " When I
went to Rauland management and told them that I wanted to start a company in
Texas, they told me, 'Whatever you do, pick a name that doesn't start with an A
or start with a Z,' " he says with a chuckle. At the time, telephone book ads were
a must for businesses, you didn't want to be first or last. Lone Star fit perfectly in
the middle.
Bailey recalls, " You've got to be somewhere in the middle of the alphabet to
be seen as reputable. " When the company was born in 1991, the name Lone Star
Communications, thankfully, was available. " We did our research, and we're not
the only Lone Star out there - there are other companies - but we're the only
incorporated Lone Star Communications, " he adds.
going to become software and subscription, "
Bailey adds. " I'd like to say 100%, but
that's not likely to happen anytime soon. "
From CapEx to OpEx
For Bailey, the conclusion is inescapable:
The AV industry needs to roll with the
tide of software and subscription-based
offerings. " Consumers like to consume
things, as opposed to purchasing things, "
he declares. " Nobody wants to go out and
spend a million dollars on a system when
they can subscribe to it and pay a little
piece of that every month. " Increasingly,
LSC has found that it has been moved from
capital expenditure (CapEx) budgeting to
operational expenditure (OpEx) budgeting.
" It becomes a monthly charge or an
annual charge, as opposed to some million-dollar
project that they have to collect
funds for ahead of time, " Bailey says.
From Bailey's vantage point, the future
of the AV industry looks bright. " I think
there's a big future [ahead], " he declares.
" The AV industry is going through a
change, and that is we're becoming more
software and less hardware oriented. I
think those companies that are making that
change and becoming more of a service
entity are going to have a higher success
rate and a lot more longevity than those
that remain a hardware company. "
Of course, in the commercial AV world,
hardware will never be eliminated completely.
There will always be a place for
speakers, microphones, etc. But, if you ask
Bailey, those products will become more
generic, more commodity-based and less
specific. " The software, the programming
of that software and how you customize
that software to fit a customer's needs is
going to become bigger, " he foretells. CI
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JANUARY 2023 Commercial Integrator
21
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Commercial Integrator January 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Integrator January 2023
