Latest News Story's from Sedao
Release Date - 13/01/2010
Sedao takes the risk out of school-wide communications
Sedao launches its largest range of school based digital signage communications at BETT 2010 and dramatically reduces the cost of digital signage.
Digital signage, the term used to describe all manner of flat screen and projector-based communication, is now the de-facto standard messaging system for schools and other education establishments.
In today’s cost-conscious times, the economics of digital signage equipment is as important as the messaging it conveys; so it is important that schools maximise its effectiveness whilst minimising the cost. Key to this is evaluation, comparison and awareness of hidden costs; understanding of additional necessary hardware, support, training and expansion.
Gareth Jones, ICT Manager for Learning at the Academy for of St. Francis of Assisi in Liverpool recently installed a full network-based digital signage system across the site and has first-hand experience of the key issues inherent to digital signage. “We were very keen to install digital signage in our reception area and around the academy and naturally had a few companies visit to show us their products. We were quoted £10K for one system which was described as being “your own TV channel”, however we soon realised that it would only serve in the reception area and was not at all suited to a site-wide effective communication system that we desired, so we quickly disregarded it. Instead we selected the Sedao system having tested it ourselves: using a full-version, limited-time evaluation version from the Sedao website. It cost a fraction of the price and has far greater functionality. We were also able to make use of some old, but still perfectly usable PCs and were not forced to purchase brand-new ones, which provided a further cost saving to the school and is much better for the environment. In the future we will be able to add it to other screens around the academy without incurring any additional licence fees.”
Sedao Managing Director explains the Sedao strategy of increasing the functionality whilst effectively reducing the price. “The cost reduction is not just a reaction to the credit crunch, but a justification of the approach and aims of the company to deliver cost-effective product that offers maximum value. Digital signage is a mainstream technology in the education sector; and there is significant demand for it. The launch of some major new product developments means that we’ve improved on ‘multi-zoned reception signs’ and added a myriad of others including automated media management, free instant on-line news feeds (great when school is closed due to snow), school-wide emergency messaging, interactive school magazines (for websites), digital signage screen saver technology and more. We’re so confident that any school IT technician can set up a system that we’re offering try-before-you-buy on every product and service.”
Amongst many other features the Sedao range now allows schools to:
- Create the highest quality reception welcome and messages screens
- Play unlimited school messages into dedicated zones on any PC in school.
- Play unmodified existing messages, from PowerPoint, web pages and more
- Trigger emergency messages to every school PC from a dedicated intranet server.
- Add unlimited numbers of news feeds to the school’s internet site
- Show screen savers on any PC in the school that display schools news information
- Add ‘update-it-yourself’ electronic page-turning magazine news letters to the school’s internet site
- Turn excel spreadsheets in to electronic posters for menus and timetables
- Copy digital message media from any PC to every PC in school automatically