NEC, Intel, Microsoft to Offer Digital-Signage Platform

NEC Corp., Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. have entered into a strategic relationship to provide an integrated, digital-signage platform for the global market, including Japan, that addresses the retail and digital-signage market’s need for a more streamlined solution that supports digital content, interactivity, intelligence and life-cycle management.
In January 2010, Intel and Microsoft announced a strategic relationship to develop and promote a validated platform for intelligent, digital-signage applications. NEC will integrate solutions and services, including content management and media distribution, with the digital-signage platform based on Windows Embedded Standard 7 and the Intel Core i5/i7 processors. The companies have discussed collaboration in the areas of hardware, software, system integration and services. This includes a strategic, cloud-computing collaboration, which is intended to eventually increase alignment between NEC, Intel and Microsoft.
Collaboration of new control devices and displays based on Intel architecture.
• NEC will add a newly developed controller module and display specialized for digital signage based on the Open Pluggable Specification (OPS), Intel’s initiative to standardize the design and development of digital signs.
• NEC will enhance its audience measurement solutions by increasing accuracy of its state of the art age and gender recognition technology.
• The use of business intelligence maintained in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 database software provides more flexibility to create visual analysis of collected data.
• Intel Core i5/i7 processors and Windows 7 technology within Windows Embedded Standard 7 enable NEC to develop the controller capable of managing digital-signage software and audience-measurement software in a single board.