A Chat With Corum Digital’s Amedeo Tarzia
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
When we heard that Corum Digital Corporation had acquired The MediaTile Company brand of products, we were left with a lot of questions.
And while they didn’t all get answered – especially those about MediaTile’s actual clients remaining at the time of the sale – we did learn a little more about Corum Digital when we interviewed Amedeo Tarzia, CEO and president, yesterday from the company’s administration offices in Woodbridge, Ontario.
Corum Corporation, in business for close to 25 years, had started developing various digital signage components in 2010 and spun them off into a separate company, Corum Digital, in 2011.
That year, it acquired the firmCHANNEL brand of digital signage products from vendor eliquidMEDIA International, a privately-held digital signage software development company based in Windsor, Ontario, that specializes in the development of digital signage software.
“At that point, we saw that we could offer a full digital signage package,” says Tarzia. “With solid content management software, developments in gesture interactivity, RIFD and NFC capabilities, an Android-based digital signage software solution, PC and Android players, and more, we could work with partners to deploy the screens and offer a full turnkey solution.
“Now, with the acquisition of MediaTile, with its digital signage and video presence product (ie. the human kiosk), and long history and passion for software development, we have two completely separate brands to offer.”
According to Tarzia, MediaTile’s customers are loyal and there are thousands of screens involved, with both US and global deployments.
“The contracts remain in force,” says Tarzia, refusing however to name customers and giving the impression that there are still some talks underway.
“We have some exciting plans ahead in our offices in Windsor and Woodbridge,” says Tarzia – who, we noted, seemed undecided (at least, to us) about the future of the Scotts Valley offices of MicroTile.
It is clear, however, that Corum Digital will be offering two complete software platforms in firmCHANNEL and MediaTile.
“The brands will both be offered as separate entities,” says Tarzia. “We’re firmly planted in the world of emerging technologies.”
We asked Tarzia about what appears to be an interest by Corum to collect ailing companies.
“We have a keen appetite for innovative firms who are underfunded or not able to capitalize on what they have,” he says. “Corum Digital is well-funded and we’re always looking for software firms. We feel that digital signage is an area of high growth which will have a lot of consolidation in the next five years.”
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