|
|
|
|
- Audience Response Industry News
- |
| |
|
Most Vendors Report Strong Sales for 2006 (December 15, 2006) |
| After speaking with at
least a dozen audience response product and service vendors, it is clear
that 2006 is proving to be a very good year for nearly everyone in the
industry. We are seeing continued
growth of usage in the general business marketplace as well as in
education and government sectors. While there may be occasional
demand for multi-purpose devices (PDAs, cell phones, etc.) single
purpose devices are accepted as the norm.
We have not seen new product
introductions this year. Instead, the industry seems to be
focusing on software development which takes greater advantage of the
newer hardware platforms that have been introduced over the past year
and a half. |
| |
|
ComTec provides 3500
Reply Worldwide Keypad Rental
System (December 13, 2006) |
| One of the companies on our
'Favorites' page (ComTec Audience
Response Systems) has issued a press release stating that they
provided a 3500 keypad rental system for US Figure Skating on December
10 at Boston University's Agganis Arena, and that system performance was
"stellar". This is believed
to be the largest configuration to date for the Worldwide platform which
tops out at 3750 keypads. ComTec used 14 base stations, each of
which was connected to a USB amplifier and CAT5 cabling. |
| |
|
Off-Peak Rental Season Remains Busy
(August 6, 2006) |
| Although July. August
and early September are normally extremely slow for the rental business,
this summer is proving to be an exception. In talking with
more than a dozen audience response rental service providers last week,
each and every one has reported that they have work booked throughout
the summer. Most have stated that
it has even been difficult to schedule employee vacations because of
this unusual activity level. Now don't misunderstand.
Business is still well below the overall yearly average, but it is
clearly stronger than any summer in recent memory. |
| |
|
Strong Turnout At ASTD (May 10, 2006) |
Attendance at the ASTD
(American Society for Training and Development) annual convention is
nothing short of ‘very strong’ which could signal that corporate America
is once again investing in training. From what I saw, the seminars were
fully attended and traffic in the Expo Hall was bustling with trainers
in search of solutions.
As you would expect, the major industry players were all there. But
since I’m most interested in
classroom response
systems (aka
student response systems) I found the mix of these vendors to be
rather interesting.
It’s not too long ago that Fleetwood was pretty much the only audience
response vendor at the annual ASTD show. This year though other vendors
included: eInstruction, Option Technologies, Turning Technologies, and
Qwizdom (listed alphabetically).
I was fortunate enough to be in a position to eavesdrop on more than
just a few conversations between trainers and response system
salespeople. The common theme seemed to be that most trainers had very
specific questions about how each vendor’s system fit with the way that
the trainer needs to work.
Many had advanced questions regarding reporting methodologies, data
import facilities, export capabilities, and tools for freeing the
instructor from the keyboard. Most important, the days of explaining
what a student response system is seem to be gone. . . finally.
Another observation is that hands down, trainers want PowerPoint
plug-ins for driving these hardware systems and have little interest in
standalone software applications. The exception is with advanced, or
power users. These instructors are not at all shy about tackling
technology. But by and large, the average trainer has had more than
his/her share of new technology to digest over recent years.
I did see one new plug in called
PowerCom,
which is designed for use with Fleetwood’s Reply Worldwide system. It is
a stable, easy to use (wizard driven) system with a feature set that is
typical for plug-in polling modules. I understand that an ‘education
market’ feature pack is in the works and expect that PowerCom will
become a top player in the plug-in market.
|
| |
|
Fleetwood Breaks the $80 price barrier with Reply Worldwide (January 8,
2006) |
| The Fleetwood Group has
announced new pricing on Reply Worldwide and Reply IQ and has done so in
a very big way. Reply WW has been reduced from $139.95 a keypad to
just $79.95. And the base station is now $595, down from $850.
This is a major change in strategy, and
the customer is the number one beneficiary. This means that now,
when evaluating rental versus purchase, the breakeven point is probably
between 4 and 5 meetings rather than the traditional 7 to 8.
It also means that buyers with more
advanced requirements such as multi-digit entry (Reply IQ) now have a
rather affordable alternative as IQ keypads are now $179.99 rather than
$239.95. |
| |
|
Option Technologies is Purchased by National Auto Credit (November 28,
2005) |
| National Auto Credit, a
public company (OTCBB - NAKD) announced earlier this week that they have
purchased Option Technologies Interactive, LLC (OTI) for $744,000 in
cash; 496,250 NAKD shares (valued at the time about $238,200.00 US) and
$1.5 million in performance based promissory notes.
Interestingly, National Auto Credit (NAC)
is also the parent company of Audience Response Systems Inc of
Evansville Indiana. NAC's primary business is in the development
and production of media for corporate events, market research, and movie
theater exhibition.
NAC states that both ARS and OTI will
remain separate entities as each has its own product line and customer
base.
We at the Audience Response Place are
very interested in how this might ultimately effect the industry,
specifically in the US market. We'll keep you posted. . . . |
|
|
eMail us
at