In the digital signage market, the two biggest channel players are Stratacache of Dayton, Ohio and Scala Inc. of Malvern, Pa. Those two players have entered into an acquisition deal that will see Stratacache get majority control of Scala.
Stratacache has expertise in media distribution and enterprise video acceleration technology, while Scala the stronger channel network and they have more global locations. Stratacache does have a notable Canadian presence with its office in Mississauga, Ont.
No financial details were provided for this deal.
Chris Riegel, CEO of Stratacache said he has great admiration for the Scala platform, team, and its channel. He added that his company can help Scala channel partners realize success with depth and breadth of products and services.
The plan going forward is to further the channel investment and resources to broaden the scope of offerings for the reseller channel.
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Digital signage market analyst Lyle Bunn said Stratacache has served end users in direct supply and operates with a comprehensive support model. Scala has a similar 25-year longevity, working with more than 500 partners in 100 countries to operate more than 500,000 displays. “Scala’s strength has been in working with channel partners including integrators and distributors while assuring no channel conflict on situations where it would work directly with the end user. Stratacache’s corporate health, deep engineering, operating, analytics and client service in its direct sales model and its experience in serving generally larger deployments of place-based media, is an excellent complement for Scala with its channel strategy and a base of installations that can reasonably be expected to expand based on astute application of the media and ongoing developments,” he said.
According to Bunn, Stratacache operates more than 1.5 million software and appliance installations for more than 425 end user organizations including Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Lowes, AT&T, H&M, Huntington Bank and others. It has acquired and integrated other businesses such as PRN, Optika, Carmanah Signs and most recently intellectual property from VertiGo and Civiq into its increasing capabilities, and has been strengthened by the addition of deeply knowledgeable personnel. Stratacache also has 18 corporate locations in North America with others in Europe, Asia and Australia along with five development centres, four hosting sites and three network operations centres.
As for Scala, Bunn said its expected that Scala partners will be welcomed into the bigger sandbox. Dot2Dot Communications of Toronto, for example, acts as Scala Canada and they are independently owned and operated. “The combination of Stratacache’s system capabilities to handle in-store promotional spending and campaigns in large retailers (like Wal-Mart) and the Dot2Dot/Scala partnership bodes well for network operators and end users. The integration of Scala into Stratacache operations offers end users an improved entry and migration path in their use of digital place-based messaging and engagement capabilities,” he said.