San José | When a tech giant like Google turns its attention to the digital signage market, the industry takes notice. The invidis team visited the ChromeOS campus in the Silicon Valley to see this focus in action.
In San José, 20 minutes away from the Googleplex in Mountainview, lies the ChromeOS Experience Center. Google built it to demonstrate the dormant power of its operating systems. With ChromeOS, Google wants to establish a common denominator for all B2B applications – invisible on the surface, but a powerful, magical wall of protection underneath.
In San José, Google showcases the capabilities of its “magic wall” in various spaces. Upon entering the CEC, as Center Specialist Chris Beveridge calls it, visitors are welcomed by a large Samsung The Wall display. While Beveridge typically guides partners and customers through the center, the invidis team was also invited to explore the world of ChromeOS for a day.
The MicroLED introduces visitors to the history of ChromeOS and Google’s vision for its B2B operating system. Nearby is the first simulated corporate setting: a call center. Here, Chris Beveridge demonstrates the integration with Cameyo, a Virtual App Delivery (VAD) platform acquired by Google in June. The platform allows Google to host apps by other providers, like Microsoft’s Excel, to be virtualized and hosted on ChromeOS without requiring a full Windows environment, making them appear and function like native ChromeOS apps.
The CEC tour moves into the healthcare sector that highlights the concept of “floating workspaces”. This approach aims to achieve complete hardware independence through a cloud-based workstation. For example, doctors can use an RFID card to log into a treatment room’s IT system and instantly access a patient’s file. When the doctors leave the room, they are automatically logged out. The idea is to give them more time to do their actual job, and less time to worry about the IT.
From education to digital signage
The next area features a classroom setup, which is by far where the most ChromeOS devices are in use. In many regions, ChromeOS has become a standard in the education system, with New York City’s public schools alone using over one million Chromebooks.
What Google has accomplished in the education market, it now aims to replicate in the digital signage sector. Following the classroom setup, the CEC showcases a QSR kiosk application, AI-supported voice ordering developed in partnership with British software provider Sodaclick, and a classic pick-and-lift application.
Last year, Google successfully expanded its partner network for digital signage solutions. Along with Sodaclick, Navori has recently been added to the list of ChromeOS Enterprise Recommended solutions. Meanwhile, the Samsung The Wall at the entrance operates using the CMS from Signagelive, one of Google’s longest-standing ChromeOS partners.
Digital signage may only be a small part of the entire Google world. On the ChromeOS continent, however, signage represents an important growth market. Those who are represented here as partners – whether for CMS software or Chromebox hardware – have direct access to Google’s partners in the Silicon Valley. For a niche market like digital signage, this is a welcome dose of visibility.
