NAB Wrap-Up: Why NAB is Now the Most Important Show for Convergence (and not CES)
Posted Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:25:04 EDT by Michael Wolf
Got back from Vegas last night, and overall have to say it was a very good show. Lots of interesting stuff going on in the digital media space, with all of the large hardware, software and enabling technology vendors in the digital media food-chain working on getting this whole multi-platform world to come together. If there was a unifying theme, I think it would have to be one of trying to better get rich content on as many screens as possible, but do it in a way that helps media companies, carriers and their intermediary partners to unify much of the back-end software and hardware frameworks.
I had some great meetings with vendors such as Seachange, Harmonic, Tandberg, vendors that typically work pretty far up the digital media value chain and have strong legacies in traditional broadcast media. These vendors are looking down the delivery chain and trying to figure out how to provide their partners with some way to help deal with an increasingly fractured distribution world. Moving closer towards the presentation layer and consumer experience, Adobe, Microsoft and others are looking to find ways to provide a common platform for managing content flow by increasingly tying together all of their development tools across mobile, pay and web.
Overall, I would have to say this show is one that probably is starting to exceed that of CES in the convergence space because I think while devices (really the core of CES) and connectivity is important, its the underlying delivery platforms, management and development tools that are going to make it happen. Just as I've always felt knowing what is happening in the silicon space is perhaps the best indicator of what is to come in devices a few years down the road, knowing what is happening in tools and development for media is perhaps the best leading indicator today of what media will look like tomorrow. NAB (and IBC for Europe) are the shows that will give any analyst, journalist and industry person a pulse on that.