Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Scala this week announced that it had sold its 100,000th software player and claimed in said press release that it had “reached a milestone unmatched by any other digital signage software company” – evidently a recent purchase from pharmaceutical company Novartis to expand its (NOTE) ‘internal” digital signage network marked the sale of more than 15,000 players since the beginning of 2009.
15,000 in the four and half months of this year seems VERY high – yes they won the Sprint retail stores (1,300 licenses) and ECE Flatmedia but who else to get such a high number? Scala declined to comment on the makeup of the numbers which is stupid when you have just released a press release about them. Back up the numbers with fact or shut up!!
Scala likely turned over USD 18M last year and if 15,000 is a real number for H1 2009 then it would put them on a growth path of something like 80%. That is unlikely don’t you think?
To help put these numbers in context, folks like EnQii probably have something like 15,000 live licenses, signagelive (if you include all ediitons; desktop, screensaver, display) probably has 8,000+ though we think they will easily get to 15,000 or so by the end of 2009 and TELentice probably have in the region of 17,000 licenses.
Anyway, it may have taken them 20 – 25 years to get there (no-one seems to have noticed also that the figures don’t gel with Frost & Sullivan’s ridiculous report of 18 months ago either) but it’s a nice milestone nonetheless so congratulations to Scala and all its VARs are in order.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:10 @549
I have bought about 175 pairs of underpants in the last 25 years but I dont still have them all !
May 21st, 2009 at 13:15 @594
Isn’t that DPaint on that Amiga 3000? Brings back lots of hazy, rose-tinted memories!
As for ‘Y Front’, it’s a little obscure a statement? What are you rambling on about? (maybe it’s me and I’m being slow on this sunny Thursday PM)..
May 21st, 2009 at 13:18 @596
What Y Front might be implying is that many of those trumpeted 100,000 licences were sold for legacy computers, most of which are probably not fit to be switched on anymore.
May 21st, 2009 at 13:27 @602
Thanks Jorge.. It’s been a long week.
Fair point, but I guess the same can be said of many software platforms in the market – many of whom are just as keen to trumpet big numbers. It’s also a phenomenon not unique to this market. One day, there will be a more ‘current’ an independently judged set of numbers for all the various vendors (we certainly hope!).
It’s a milestone, nonetheless. A bit like Microsoft talking about licenses sold.. Not a judgement of whether they are switched on 🙂
May 24th, 2009 at 23:52 @036
Well, my sincere congratulations to Scala.
Agree with Peter. Good job guys.
luis