There’s a reason why turnkey solutions are popular today: All components have been sourced, designed, and developed to be easy to pair together.
But kits still are not common in many industries where outside experts are needed to create multipart solutions that involve different vendors. The resulting systems have disparate components and several vendors trying to cooperate and coexist.
In the digital signage market, most visual messaging solutions involve displays from one company, media playback devices from another and content management system (CMS) software from yet another. A separate company may implement the solution and manage it.
That’s why an all-in-one solution — containing all the key components, all from one supplier — is so appealing to digital signage buyers and solution providers. With a hassle-free solution from a single provider, you know the components were specifically designed to work together.
Samsung offers this solution. It seamlessly pairs Samsung hardware and software using a content management system called MagicINFO.
A close-up on MagicINFO
Samsung has long been the marketplace leader on the display side of digital signage technology It has best in class signage hardware but also has content management software (CMS) that drives and manages display networks in everything from retail and restaurants to airports and factory floors.
More recently Samsung has decided to double down on our software and service efforts and bring more focus on our Display CMS. As we continue to scale this business, I’ve been fortunate to be the first dedicated product manager for MagicINFO. Since then, our team has carefully listened to customer feedback to continuously refine and build our home-grown solution accordingly.
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Introduced more than a decade ago as an entry-level budget option, MagicINFO was aimed mainly at end users who were unable to invest in a commercial digital signage CMS. Just as all successful technology solutions mature, the MagicINFO software has grown into a robust, well respected and widely used enterprise-grade platform. The latest version is MagicINFO 8, a platform that competes favorably with the top independent CMS software platforms.
But where other software options consist of disparate parts pulled together, MagicINFO offers all the key components from one supplier — and on a single smart device.
Samsung pioneered the now popular concept of embedding a digital signage media player inside a flat-panel display, lowering upfront costs by removing the expense of an external media player, cleaning up installations typified by multiple devices and many cables and lowering maintenance costs by minimizing the potential points of failure.
Now those Smart Signage displays are also loaded with MagicINFO’s playback, communications and management software — which has been matched and specifically optimized for system on a chip (SoC) displays and Samsung’s own Tizen operating system.
A number of third party developers have provided versions of their software compatible with Samsung SMART signage LFDs, but MagicINFO was designed from the ground up to optimize performance on Samsung’s SoC platform, offering the best performance possible.
Core components
The MagicINFO software platform has three key components:
- Author: For designing layouts, working with predesigned templates and organizing messaging
- Server: For creating playlists, targeting locations and scheduling messaging
- Player: For running flawless visual messaging, at resolutions as sharp as 8K
Additionally, a major differentiator integrated into MagicINFO’s turnkey solution is its device management capability. This allows operators managing content to playout at dispersed locations, as well as enabling remote monitoring and management that maximizes screen uptimes.
There are also add-ons available to enhance the core components and network operation:
- Datalink: Ingests and manages data from external applications — like retail or building management systems — to power dynamic data. Screen presentations can change in real time, based on everything from exchange rates to key performance indicators (KPIs) shown on production floors.
- Analytics: Real-time analysis and content triggering capabilities — driven by artificial intelligence — built around sensors that show, for example, shoppers’ general profiles and how they operate in-store.
- Insight: An easy-to-understand playback dashboard that logs, harvests and reports how MagicINFO screens are performing in the field, including Proof of Play affidavits for advertising and marketing partners.
On-premises and cloud
MagicINFO has historically been sold through its partner ecosystem as a one-time software license — a setup that suits many of Samsung’s largest digital signage customers, who want to fully run and manage a network inside their firewall.
But the industry has seen an uptick in demand for cloud-based systems, hosted and managed by a service provider. MagicINFO 8 is now also available as software as a service (SaaS). Users subscribe to the service, paying a subscription fee per screen and letting the Samsung team worry about the servers, storage, network integrity and upkeep.
Paired with either on prem or hosted is an elevated MagicINFO support option, a new offer that provides fast, expert-level services for customers who want to realize all the benefits of digital signage messaging in their business while keeping IT and operations staff focused on core activities.
Holistic solution
The popularity of turnkey and outsourced solutions is indicative of a need across many businesses to streamline their workflows and leave specific tasks to trusted partners. MagicINFO is the kind of holistic, built-to-purpose solution many businesses are craving as they look to up their communications game. We encourage you to reach out to our team today to learn more.
Explore more about how corporate offices are using digital signage to produce dynamic, engaging content for workers and clients alike. And discover the importance of content management systems in digital signage across all industries.
