2021-01-28

Barco Reconfirms Commitment to the Growing Control Rooms Market

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

The company continues to invest in and innovate the most optimal solutions.

Barco, a world leader in professional control room solutions, has clearly identified and confirmed its position and short and mid-term expectations in the growing control rooms market. With continued investments in innovation, a revised Services portfolio, a strong partner network, and an additional focus on new emerging verticals, Barco wants to strengthen its position and further grow as a global control rooms technology provider. The strongholds remain professional-quality products and services, extreme durability, fit-for-purpose reliability, and a very strong brand that keeps its commitments towards its partners and end-users.

2020 was a challenging year for many companies, and the Barco group is no exception to that. Nevertheless, the control room division was able to keep its ground, managed to gain market share and continued investing in new technologies and solutions. As a strong and well-respected brand, Barco assures its commitments towards partners and customers, and this is clearly a valued attitude in the market.

Commitment to large video walls

Large video walls were the first Barco products that were offered to the control rooms market, and this category remains an important part of Barco’s business. Barco is one of the very few manufacturers that offer the 3 dominant video wall technologies: rear-projection cubes (RPCs), tiled LCD, and direct view LED. This position will not change in the coming years. In fact, Barco’s innovation and R&D investments will bear fruit in 2021 by introducing next generation video wall products that are promised to benefit partners as well as end users.

“We have noticed that some competitors have stepped away from the rear-projection cubes market,” says George Stromeyer, Senior VP and General Manager of Barco’s Enterprise division. “Barco however strongly believes this technology is still the most optimal option for specific use cases. We therefore remain dedicated to this technology, and continue to offer, service, and invest in it. With a portfolio that comprised of rear-projection cubes, tiled LCD, and direct view LED, Barco can always offer the best possible solution for every customer, depending on requirements, usage, and budget.”

Barco also continues to innovate in LCD and direct view LED technology. Exciting new products tailored for the control rooms market, planned for the first half of 2021, will again fuel our leading position.

View better, share faster, resolve quicker

Distributing the right information to the right people is a crucial task for control rooms. Barco’s renowned media platform enables swift content collection and sharing, allowing the operators to monitor all relevant information and if needed distribute it to internal or external stakeholders. Furthermore, with Barco’s operator workspace solution OpSpace, control room operators can access all information in the most convenient way possible. In this way, Barco optimally supports the decision-making process in control rooms.

New cloud-based technologies offer additional opportunities. They allow the operators to set up a bidirectional information stream with external field stakeholders and field workers, using the innovative SecureStream solution. In other words, data can both be sent from the control room to the outside and vice versa. Security is key for this kind of communication line, but Barco has managed to establish this connection in a 100% secure way. What’s more, WallConnect Cloud also allows to monitor and manage several vital parameters for video walls, enabling service providers to offer proactive remote management. This is used for the innovative SmartCare service offering, which helps to maximize the uptime of Barco systems.

Going for sustainable impact for Barco and for its customers

Next to offering the highest quality product, Barco also strives to limit the ecological footprint of its products. Two of the video wall product groups (the Barco UniSee LCD video wall range and the RGB Laser ODL rear-projection cube range) have received the Eco Product label, following Barco’s stringent ecoscoring methodology. Focusing not only on energy consumption but also use of materials, packaging & logistics, and end-of-life management, this methodology really considers all aspects of eco-friendly design. This means that sustainability was considered during all steps of the design process.

Our products that received the Eco Product label all feature an explanation on their ecodesign focus. Read more on the respective product pages!