Burbank, CA (February 1, 2009) – Let’s face it: small businesses are hurting in today’s economy. Many companies are halting expansion, ceasing marketing efforts and trying to keep under the radar until the economy can recover. However, making such a drastic change in a young business can spell disaster, economic downturn or not.
Fortunately, technology has enabled small businesses an affordable way to keep expanding in these times of economic hardship. Applica, a growing software company, has embraced this concept and multiplied it into something that can not only be of benefit to small business but to large business as well. This scalability is what has allowed the combined efforts with Smart AVI, which has provided many of the hardware solutions that mirrored the needs of software developed by Applica.
The combined efforts of these two innovative companies have given birth to great products like SignagePro, Presenter and Plazoom. SignagePro and Presenter provide a combination of hardware and software that allows a single PC to drive and control multiple remote screens, simultaneously and independently, from a central location. Each screen is capable of running unique programs, just as though it were operated by a separate computer and is compatible with all benchmark industry formats (Flash, Video, MPG, HTML, QuickTime, PowerPoint, JPG etc). Products like these make it easy for small business, after initial purchase, to maintain a constant stream of revenue from advertisers on these exclusive networks.
Perhaps the most scalable of products produced by this duo is Plazoom, which is a complete “home‐entertainment” system that allows a host PC to display streaming images on multiple plasma screens that act as client. Each TV can play different movies, audio, photos, access email or control home functions simultaneously and independently. This has proven profitable in hotels where the interactive multimedia system can deliver movies, music, computer games and Internet communications to up to 250 rooms. Hotel operators can select and control the content that they deliver to these rooms and retain 100% of the revenues.
Users have reacted well to the alliance between Smart AVI’s hardware and Applica’s userfriendly software. “SmartAVI’s control system is so simple, I had all of the managers trained to use it in about one minute – just one minute!” stated Mike Brown‐Cestero, a partner at The Sporting House Bar & Grill in Las Vegas. The restaurant and cocktail lounge went up in competition for customers from the large casinos by installing 50 wide screen HDTVs throughout its ample 14,000 square foot facility. Though managing a large network of screens, channels and scoreboards it only takes one person and one computer to monitor and manage the entire system.
Applica strives to be innovative in both the software and hardware industries with the common goal of delivering high‐tech and well‐developed software that an average service worker can easily learn and utilize. These technologies are used in many competitive industries requiring multi‐station displays including education, advertising and retail, transportation, entertainment, government, and corporate and business.