Illuminate, the new brand with which Toshiba announces its entry into the digital signage market

The Lead Conference 2013 that Toshiba has celebrated in Florida (USA), focused on its managed print services division (MPS) and in the distribution channel, has served to announce and offer them a new business opportunity in the digital signage environment under the Ellumina brand.

Nearly eight hundred distribution channel professionals, end users, analysts and media have attended the Lead conference 2013 what Toshiba America Business Solutions celebrates annually, and what took place 11 al 14 last month in Orlando (Florida, USA) under the motto 'Touch the future'.

The great novelty of Lead 2013 has been the presentation of the company's strategy focused on digital signage solutions under the Ellumina brand, composed of a line of products for two different platforms (hardware, software and content): Virtuoso DS y Manager Experience.

Added to this is the innovative e-Studio306LP/30RD multifunction system, that incorporates a toner that is erased to reuse paper and benefit eco-efficiency in companies and offices.

The recently appointed president and CEO of Toshiba America Business Solutions, Scott Maccabe, inaugurated this event using Walt Disney's innovative Epcot theme park as an example along with the motto 'Touch the future' of the Lead conference 2013, to show the new digital and integrated environment, in which printing and its services are one more part.

Maccabe highlighted the milestones of the company and the MPS division, which currently represents the 20% of the company's total business, as well as the importance of digital communication as a profitable and future business focus.

Tactile communication and gesture control

Although Toshiba has made inroads into the digital signage market with its Slim line (as reported Digital AV Magazine), It is now when the company wants to focus on this industry with a complete hardware digital signage proposal, software and content. As the company's own executives have pointed out, “The printing industry is a declining market and we are in the business of helping people learn about the advantages of digital communication and its content”.

In this sense, the company has presented the Virtuoso DS platform, Composed of Windows-based digital signage software that can be customized by the customer, touch screens with integrated PC, especially oriented to vertical markets such as retail, hospitality, education,… with basic needs (one or three screens) digital communication.

Toshiba has developed Virtuoso for various sizes of touch screens, with which the user can interact and with gesture control, ranging from a desktop system to 22 inches to a display of 70 inches with floor stand and custom contents, that offers significant margins to the channel and additional and recurring income through maintenance contracts (hardware y software).

For more complex digital signage deployments Toshiba offers the scalable Experience Manager platform, in collaboration with the multichannel message management and distribution company ComQi, that improves the user experience with interactive systems, live and pre-programmed content, etc, for shopping centers, airports, leisure and entertainment spaces, etc.

Toshiba's objective with this digital signage strategy is to offer a business opportunity and added value to the printing channel, not only to AV and IT distributors, since digital signage solutions and their related services are present in most of the events in this industry..