Joe King, Philips

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED - DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT

Philips has really come on in recent years in the digital signage ecosystem, taking on more and more presence at trade shows and releasing smart display products that my industry contacts have consistently said great things about.

You probably have a consumer product like a shaver or electric toothbrush made by Philips, and assume that the commercial display products come out of that Dutch company. They do … and don’t, and I get into that in a chat with Joe King, a Senior Director with the company, who drives North American sales.

Joe and I talk about where its smart display lineup is at, and its use of Android. We also talk about its own CMS software, which he stresses is NOT intended to compete with commercial software products. It’s meant to service the very basic needs of small businesses.

We talk about market conditions, and how the professional display company has kind of skated through all of this COVID mess … because the desktop monitor side of the business has exploded with Work From Home demands.

We explore the company’s camera-driven access control offer for retail, and who’s buying direct view LED these days.

And finally, we get into what to look for from Philips in the next 12-18 months.

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TRANSCRIPT

Joe King, thanks for joining me. We've met in the past. I know Phillips well, and I think generally a lot of people know Phillips. One of the things that sometimes when I'm introduced to Phillips people, they kind of explained to me the background of the display side of the company. They may have Phillips toothbrushes on all kinds of things at home, but Phillips’s professional display is, as I understand it, the trading name for some other large companies. 

Joe: Yeah. Dave, thank you. Good to be with you by the way, and thank you for having me. Yeah, so we operate as Phillips. We operate under a license from Phillips. We're actually a global company called TPV. It's based out of Taiwan and we operate with a commercial license globally for digital signage, as well as a professional TV. So signage TV, hotel TV, we operate that pretty much around the world.

There are a couple of little pockets that are exceptions, but for the most part, we operate that around the world. So we have the power of TPV behind it and the manufacturing power of TPV behind it, which we're quite happy about. I think most of the industry probably doesn't know the name, but we're the world's largest manufacturer of desktop monitors. We're the world's third-largest manufacturer of televisions. And we like having THEM behind us because it gives us a lot of product development power, and also a lot of manufacturing power when we need it. So, happy you bring that up and thank you for the question. really 

There are some big companies in Taiwan. I've been there two or three times. I was there about a year ago. And, man, I was off to see AUO, but we went right by the TSMC, they're the biggest semiconductor maker in the world and this place was the size of a Ford plant. 

Joe: Yeah. It's nice having that manufacturing power behind us.

Where do you guys sit in terms of market share in North America and in Europe as well? I think in terms of Samsung and LG being top of the pile in North America, but you guys have really come on in the last two or three years. 

Joe: We have and even with COVID, Dave, we've been able to increase our share a little bit. So I think it depends on the day of the week, we are #4-#5. We tend to swap back and forth with another brand there at that level. But certainly, we don't have the market power of a Samsung or even an LG, but, as you say, we're growing certainly in North America and North America is a focus for us now.

We're the number three digital signage player in Europe. Again, behind the two large brands that you mentioned, but there's a real focus with us on North America because we feel like we're now getting our act together, so to speak. We've improved the product line. We've put world-class service in place, something that I think we can differentiate ourselves with, but yeah, we see North America as a real focal point for us. 

You joined or the company joined, what many of the display manufacturers have done in terms of adding systems-on-chip displays to their lineup? And one of the things that I've I've known about Philips is that a lot of the software companies that kind of try the different smart display platforms out there have tended to say that the Phillips’ one is really good, it's very modern Android, powerful, runs like a top and everything else. 

How much of your product line is built around a system-on-chip now? Like the commercial display product line. 

Joe: A lot. In terms of just sheer models, if we were just looking at a percentage of the models, we're probably getting close to 75%. We'll try to offer a model that doesn't have it if we're just trying to hit a price point. But for the most part, especially as you get into the higher ends of the line, almost everything has an Android operating system in it, and we see the business going that way.

I'm a firm believer and I've been in the hardware business, a long long time. I'll age myself if I say how long, but I really do think that software is going to be the driver of this business going forward, and I think that our Android platform, as you say, it performs very well. We see it in large deployments, where it's accessible. It is an open platform, which we like, and we certainly see our business heading that way. 

Something that you hear from the software companies, as well as integrators and end-users that they like that it's open. And, you know, some of the other guys have their own proprietary operating system working with it, whereas I've heard others say we really like that we can work on just Android and do what we need to do without learning or tweaking something. 

Joe: Right. Well, there's a level of consistency, I guess, would probably be the best way to say that. But yes, we get that feedback a lot and I think one of the things that we've done that might be a little different is we tend to try to stabilize On an Android version. So if we see something that we like, that's very stable, you know, we had Android 4.4.4 in the market for quite a long time. And even though there were a lot of updated versions, we kept saying to the marketplace, “This is stable, why do you want to even think about upgrading firmware and trying to mess things up?”

So we tend to draw a line in the sand, if you will, that a particular Android version and we've been very consistent in that. And I think our software partners like that approach actually. 

And where are you now? I think you're at 7. 

Joe: We actually have some displays with 8. We have two different, I think it's 7.1 in the marketplace as well as an 8 today.

Are there any objections still from end users saying, well, you know, it's a system-on-chip? What if something happens with the panel? I gotta replace the whole panel or it's not as powerful enough or anything like that. 

Joe: Certainly I think we tend to get those questions. I think we've proven with some of the demonstrations and stuff that we've done that certainly, the platform is powerful enough.

I think honestly, Dave, the way to answer that is that we've put a service organization in place that we think is second to none in the industry. So if somebody does need a fast replacement, we have the ability to do that. We offer people a 24-hour turnaround. We certainly understand that if it's a menu board in a quick-serve restaurant and it goes out, it can't be their black for a very long time at all.

So we certainly offer the marketplace, those opportunities for quick replacement and that's one of the reasons we do it. We have a very reliable product. I would put it up against anybody else in the industry, which is why we talk about that quick turnaround service, because we know we're not going to need it very much. 

Have you ever run into a smart display where the smarts have died and the panel had to be pulled down? Cause I ask this question a lot and I've never heard anybody say that's actually happened. 

Joe: No, I haven't. And it's a good question. I think again, we try to separate those two. So, the Android operating system is separate, literally a separate board, if you will, from the display itself so those aren't tied together. Now certainly, if a display goes black, it's going to go black regardless, but I haven't seen them tied together that way and it may be just because of the design of our product. 

Right, but I mean that the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that gets someone out there around system-on-chip displays is if there is a problem with the CPU, which you know, is a separate component from the display components and so on, you can't just open a trap door and snap on out and pop a new one. You got to take the whole thing down. But I've never actually heard anybody say this has happened. 

Joe: I haven't either. I haven't seen it. You could always make the argument, you know, indifference to my friends at BrightSign that you could see the same thing with a player and I think we just like this approach. We think the improved service or the improved performance of the Android operating system is worth the investment. And we don't see a risk. We really don't, and as I said, I think some of the installations we have would certainly support that.

What happens on the install side itself? I have heard some solutions providers say that field servicing drops like a boulder because we don't have all these connectors. 

Joe: Yeah. I think you're right. I think, you know, even from our standpoint, we offer our software partners the opportunity for us to preload the software, you know, we have a high touch warehouse facility where we can do that and make the installation process even easier.

So I think that's one of the things that we offer that may be unique to a system-on-chip product. I will oversimplify, it's not as easy as just hanging it and going, but it certainly can make the installation much easier to do with some of the pre-loading capability that we have.

And from what I've heard is because there aren't any HDMI cables and other cables associated with them, there's nothing to wiggle loose and, cause a truck roll. 

Joe: Yeah, well, I'll share it with you. We review service metrics every month and we know that on average, about 65% of the calls we get into our call center are exactly that, it's what I would call operator error. So, things like the cable has come loose, a power cord has come loose and typically we see, it'll be a little higher, some months, a little lower some months, but typically about 65% of the calls we get, we resolve over the phone and it is cable related. And so I think that's just another argument for having a totally contained system.

Yeah. Remove the points of failure. 

Joe: You got it. Exactly. 

So what is CMND, I assume it’s an acronym for Command? 

Joe: Exactly. So it is our “create and maintain” product, so it is a product that we let people create their own content. And I will say to everybody, we do it at a very elementary level. We don't pretend to be able to do some of the things that some of the other software companies out there can do. This is a way for, if you're an individual restaurant owner, and you own a deli and you want to put something up on a screen, this is a way to make PowerPoint and get it onto a screen fairly easily. It's a way for a school, as an example, if they need to broadcast an emergency message, this is an easy way to have that happen, and then it also gives you controls. 

So it can, again, I'll use those schools as an example if there's an emergency message that needed to be broadcast, it can be done from a central location and get to every product. We also utilize it, just like some of the other manufacturers, in very large installations. You can turn them all on with a button click, you can turn them all off with a button click. So just creating software and being able to control the systems as well. And, that's why we call it Command. 

So you're not trying to sell against your software partners or anything?

Joe: No way, as I said, we don't pretend to be that good. We're not in the software business. We're a hardware company, but as I said earlier, I think the software is the key going forward. So we want to make our product as seamless as it possibly can be for our software partners.

We're not trying to take their place. 

What I've seen with some of the display guys is a move to create a kind of foundational software that's a device management and control as you describe it that you could then port a web application onto, and maybe if you've got a special purpose thing where you really don't need all of the bells and whistles and capabilities of the CMS, you can just use command or CMND as the kind of the baseline platform.

Is that accurate? 

Joe: Yeah, I think that's a fair portrayal. As I said, it’s meant to be kind of elementary. And, look, there are people out there that do the software side really really well. And even the control functionality they do, better than we do. So, this is meant to be a very basic product.

You know, the great thing about it is, it's free. We don't charge for it. That's a little bit different than some of our competitors. But again, we're not charging for it because it is a very basic system. 

And these are end-users, buyers who are otherwise just not gonna get a CMS anyways unless they get something free or one of the freemium ones out there? 

Joe: Exactly. 

So, I think two or three years ago, I went to a lot of trade shows. That's more accurately say I used to go to a lot of trade shows and I can recall, let's say about three years ago, going to ISE and seeing a direct-view LED in the Phillips booth for the first time. 

So you guys have gotten into that. How do you differentiate your product in a very crowded field? 

Joe: Yeah, great question. The last time you and I actually spoke to each other and recorded anything was Infocom a year ago about LED and so, of course, COVID has impacted it. We have sold some units, I'm happy to say, and some of them are going on now, but I think that the big differentiator for us, as I talked a year ago, is kits. So we tend to put LED together and a pre-configured kit, you know, we've been very successful with video walls doing the same thing, so it comes together with the display, it comes together with a mouse and it comes together with all the processing equipment you need, the cables. And so we tend to believe in these kits and that's where our success has been in North America. A similar thing in Europe, we've seen, people are going to want custom screens and we'll certainly give them the opportunity to do that. But for us, the success really is those kits. I think the first three installations where you've done or in the process of doing in the US have all been kits versus custom.

I've heard that a lot and the prevailing opinion seems to be that you have specialty LED companies who understand everything about very large installations, big canvases, weird shapes, and everything else, but you've got this whole big second tier of integrators and solutions writers who don't work with LED very often and they don't necessarily understand it or get it, and don't have the cycles to just become experts on this, so a kit is something they can wrap their heads around. 

Joe: Yeah, I think so. And I think that where we're looking at selling this and where we've been successful is mostly in the corporate market. and also some of the consumer markets. We have a couple of partners that are really quite strong in the consumer market and some of these LED kits that we have worked really well are home theaters and that's where we've had some of our success. 

And on the corporate side, is it primarily conference rooms and control rooms, that kind of thing? 

Joe: Not conference rooms, more lobbies. In fact, the first installation we did was a corporate lobby, even in COVID, it's still something that proceeded and was installed. So, yeah, we are seeing more lobbies than conference rooms. 

Yeah. More broadly with digital signage in general, what are those vertical markets that seem to be working right now, even amidst all of this nuttiness? 

Joe: I think we've all been really surprised. I think we all expected that retail would get impacted and retail has been impacted, but I think we've all certainly been surprised at how well, certainly quick-serve restaurants, pizza, you know, the brick and mortar, home improvement, you know, large chain stores have done.

We're seeing a lot of activity in drug stores as an example. So it's really surprised me how well that retail itself has maintained. Certainly, we've seen a huge increase in education. I think a lot of those early dollars went to Chromebooks and laptops and everything else for students, but we're really seeing now an increase in some of the displays that are used for education, as kids do end up back in the classroom. 

Well, you know, all those places have a lot of change going on and, it's not, “This is what we're doing for the next three months, It can change in an hour.” 

Joe: Yeah, exactly, and I think we've seen some of that and certainly if you look at corporate as an example, I think in the US there's really a tendency to step back, about going back to work if you will, where I think in some other parts of the world, we've seen people go back to work a little more quickly.

Certainly, we've seen that in Europe. We've seen people go back into offices a little more quickly, you know, just a personal observation, I think we need to do that here. I think people need to get back into some kind of a normal routine and I think the office can be part of that. And I certainly hope that we're doing that as we get into 2021.

Yeah, I do wonder about this whole shift to work from home, how that will play out. I think it works very well for some people. I've been doing it forever, so I'm used to it, but I think there's a whole bunch of people who do their best work when they're in a collaborative environment and they can share.

Joe: Yeah. I'll share just a quick side note, I mean, I'm like you. I've worked from home for forever, I have a great setup. I can do it, but there are people in my group who, once we made the announcement that we would open the office back up, they couldn't wait to get back there, you know, social distancing and everything else that we planned for.

They still just felt that they were more productive in the office. And we have some that aren't and that's perfectly fine. We've given them that opportunity, but to your point, some of those people, whether they be supply chain-related or product development related, who just feel like they're a whole lot more productive in the office where they have the tools they need and I think a lot of companies are going to see that same thing. 

I certainly think that technology is going to have to help there and hopefully, digital signage can be part of that, whether it's collaborative displays, being able to Zoom effectively if you will but I think technology can help there. And I think that's part of why we're seeing corporate, maybe not as respond as quickly, is because they're still trying to figure that out. 

Going back to retail, Philips introduced something called “People Count” like two-three months ago or maybe more. Can you explain what that is? 

Joe: Sure. So it's a product that we in collaboration with a camera manufacturer, and then there's some software that we actually developed that works with our Android product. But it's basically a way to count people as they come into a retail establishment and then it's up to that retail establishment to tell the system how many people it can allow. So it counts them going in and it counts them going out so that if you can only have a hundred people in your store at one time, it will literally put the red light up, and tell people to wait and that it's not safe to enter yet. And then when somebody does exit, it'll give them a green light, and depending on how large that display is, it gives them a chance to tell people, a mask is required. You can't come in without a mask. It gives them a chance to tell them some of the things they're doing to keep their area clean.

And so it was very well received. I think it's been more well-received in Europe. I think in the US it's been almost on a state by state basis, as to how locked down those States still are. Certainly in California, it's been a very effective product. You know, in some other parts of the country, it's been really effective.

And then frankly, and honestly we've seen some areas of the country that just say, well, we're not going to worry about monitoring people coming. To be honest, it's been kind of hit and miss depending on where you are in the country. 

Yeah, I think I have heard it more broadly that in Europe, the idea of retail access controls as more demand and more take-up because there are pretty stiff fines associated with having too many people in the store. And I guess city bylaw enforcement officers in different jurisdictions who are pretty happy to write tickets on that. Cause they're incentive based on what they do, whereas as you say, it's state by state in the US. 

I live in a part of Canada where we've seen very few cases, but I've seen none of this stuff and it's still, teenagers acting as bouncers, you know, to get into a home Depot or something like that. So I think it kind of depends on where you are. 

Joe: Exactly. Where I live locally and I live in Tennessee, when it first started, there were people standing in front of the grocery store chain.

I go to counting people as they went in and counting people as they went out and they're all using walkie talkies, and now there's none of that going on, you know? And so I think they've just made a corporate decision that we don't need to spend that money, to try to monitor who's coming in and out whether they have a mask on or not.

And where again, I think there are some areas of the country where they're really still trying to do that and that's where we've seen success with that product. 

Have you had to work with some of these resellers and buyers who say, “guys, this isn't a product just for the moment. You can sweat this asset post-COVID”, presumably there is a post-COVID, have you had to do that? 

Joe: It's been one of the selling points we've had to make to everybody that's purchased it. I think that's been the capital outlay. We had one large retailer that bought it for right at a hundred locations and one of their biggest questions was what do I do with it when I no longer have to count people? And so I think that was where we came back and said to them, well, here's what you can do with it. We put them in touch with another software partner. Thankfully, this particular client is a digital signage user anyway, but I think that we've had that question from almost everybody: what do I do after, and is this investment that I'm making now going to be something I can recoup even down the line? And so, yeah, we've linked them up with software companies to try to maximize that.

I think there's a little bit of gateway drug stuff going on there where this is something that can get a retailer or another kind of a business that takes a lot of public foot traffic in, and get them understanding what you can do with digital signage and kind of migrate out from there.

You could imagine once you start using cameras and sensors and things like that, you can start to understand how the store works and where people go and how that changes by time of day, all that stuff. 

Joe: Right. Exactly. 

So there's a lot of talk in the cheap seats where I spent a lot of my time, that LCD is a product that's going to go away and we're all going to shift to direct-view LED and to micro-LED. Is that something that Phillips largely sees is happening or is there always a role for LCD because I kind of think there is when I really think about it. 

Joe: I think we've been talking about the demise of LCD for years, right? And I just don't see it. I think there are two totally different products, and I think that there's always going to be an application for LCDs. 

Do I think that eventually some of the video wall applications that we do today with LCD will end up being direct-view LED? I think, yeah, that's a possibility, but I still think even as fast as the cost is coming down, I still think there's going to be an opportunity. There are just things that we can do with LCD that you struggle to do with direct-view LED and a lot of that is just based on the economics and how much money people have to spend. 

You know, Dave, I don't see a school system putting in direct-view LEDs, at least before I end up retiring. I think that's a number of years away before that becomes a cost-effective solution for them and that's where some of the large screen stuff that we have and our competitors have, you know, really works in some of those verticals. You know, will you see it in transportation more quickly? Probably. When you're looking at what belt is my luggage on, does that turn into direct-view? Yeah, I think that probably is some of the first things that will happen to replace a traditional video wall. But yeah, I don't see it being that quick. 

Yeah. I mean, the minute you get into utilizing what's possible with a 4K display, uou just can't do that even on a micro-LED display, you know, to have fine characters and fine detail and all that. It's just not the same thing.

Joe: Well, and you also just look at the content. I think a lot of it is content dependable, you know?

So if you look at moving video, I think it lends itself to either format. But if you're looking at static content, think about a menu board in a quick-serve restaurant, I don't think that that is really going to be a direct-view LED Canada for the foreseeable future, just because I think it works just fine on LCD and it's much more affordable. 

So the last question: in this weird world that we live in, I wonder how this has had an impact on things like roadmaps and product releases and all that. What should we be expecting to see from Phillips over the next 12 to 18 months? 

Joe: Yeah. I guess we're fortunate because Dave, we are part of a large global company that is kind of diversified if you will. Our desktop monitor business has been off the charts as you can imagine. And I think in a lot of ways that's enabled it to support some of the development and some of the things we're doing in digital signage where some of the other companies may have had to look at scaling back a little bit.

So we're proceeding. We're going to produce in the fourth quarter of this year. Sometimes people look at us and say, what the heck are you doing? But we're going to introduce collaborative displays for corporate offices. We're going to introduce touch displays for education that are upgraded with some great systems behind them. We're going to introduce professional signage TV. We see that as an expanding market for us and others. It's basically a very cost-effective digital signage product that also has a TV tuner in it. So it's really made for use in a corporate environment. You know, we talked about conference rooms earlier. This is a really perfect product for that conference room, because it is a TV which also has Chromecast built into it. It gives you that seamless connectivity. And then it also gives you that CMND software, and the ability to control. If you've got multiple screens in a facility, it gives you a chance to control that as well, but it really is a cost-effective product. And we liked the fact, I think the big differentiator there is Chromecast and the ability to connect things, similarly, our education product will give you the ability to connect up 64 devices to it. So if you're a teacher and you have students with Chromebooks, Think about the ability to have, one of your students throw something up on the display instead of the teacher always having to control that and being the one doing that. So we like the flexibility that it gives us. 

That would terrify me if I taught a bunch of 17-year-old boys. (Laughter)

Joe: Yeah, it probably would, but, to get back to the premise of your question to your question. I was on a call this morning and we were talking about 2022 and we're in full planning mode. We were firm believers going in and my Marketing Manager would back me up on this, that we haven't really slowed down because we feel like if you start cutting and slashing, it's going to be a little more difficult to respond and maintain. Thank goodness, we haven't had to furlough anybody.

We haven't laid anybody off. We've maintained everybody, even in a market that we all know is down. And I think part of that will give us success, whether it's Q1 or Q2, whenever we see ourselves coming out of this. I think that puts us in a position and our company's a firm believer in this, that it puts us in a position where we can have more success coming out of this.

All right. That was terrific. I enjoyed our chat. 

Joe: Yeah, David's good to talk to you again.