Lee Horgan, Uniguest

More and more companies involved on the sell and service side of digital signage seem to be picking out business verticals and getting very focused on them.

It's a tactic that can work very well if that company already has a big history and footprint in a vertical, and that's certainly the case with Uniguest.

The company built up its business by putting in and managing business centers in hotels - those dedicated rooms or stations where guests can do things like print off a boarding pass or presentation deck. The technology company started getting asked by major clients about whether it also offered digital signage solutions, and like any cagey tech vendor, it said "Of Course!"

But the software Uniguest initially developed in-house wasn't all that good, and the management team decided the smarter and easier path was to acquire a company that already had a solid platform, long history and great people.

Uniguest bought the UK company Onelan, and then followed it up by acquiring a second UK software company Tripleplay. I didn't even know, until I had a tour last week of Uniguest's Center of Excellence in Nashville, that they'd also acquired a Pittsburgh company, TouchTown.

I had a great chat with Lee Horgan, the Chief Revenue Officer, about how Uniguest is building up a vertical solution that starts in hotel lobbies and extends all the way into guest rooms.

We also get into how Uniguest sees a big future providing very similar solutions in the senior living industry, where higher-end residences are looking and feeling more and more like very nice extended-stay hotels. 

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