The Midwich Group, the UK technology distributor, has hosted its trade show, Technology Exposed for a third year.
Attendance numbers were up this year to over 700 visitors across both days with the event attracting resellers and end users. Held at Ascot Racecourse on September 21 and 22, this event was a showcase of players in technology and their products. A joint venture between all of the group members, the event was hosted by Midwich, True Colours Distribution, Invision UK, Owl Visual Systems, Synergix, Square One, Ubiqz and Whichlamps.
Midwich was introducing its new division MidwichHome to this year’s show. Established in May, MidwichHome supplies the home installations market with everything from entertainment systems to lighting control, security, and communication networks.
Commenting on MidwichHome’s first outing at Technology Exposed, general sales manager Lee Hooker said: ‘Technology Exposed has been predominantly a show for our commercial brands and commercial resellers, however it was important to show our commitment to the custom install (CI) market at this show. MidwichHome is the UK exclusive distributor for Elan, Niles, Sunfire, Aton, Xantech and Atlona residential products. We received excellent feedback on this product range from the numerous custom install customers who attended the show. We were also delighted with the reception for the new TW9000 Epson 3D projector. The visibility of MidwichHome at this event has opened up several discussions with some very interesting brands that will further enhance our offerings to the home technology channel.’
With a backdrop of the Ascot event, MidwichHome also announced the news that it is expanding its offer to the trade with the launch of a new retail-focused division, headed by Neil Drain, previously of Lawton Trade.
Visitors also could learn more about Midwich’s recently launched pro audio division. Providing everything from public address and evacuation systems to commercial amplifiers and wireless microphones, the new division represents a number of brands. Of those exhibiting at Technology Exposed, great interest was shown in TOA, manufacturer of audio and security products, and Bosch whose range includes public address, voice alarm, and conference products.
Iain Campbell, sales and marketing director at True Colours said: ‘This year’s Technology Exposed was a huge success for us. We launched a new vendor called WOW Vision for the education space that had a good reception from all those who attended the demonstrations. Atlona demonstrated the new 16×16 HD BaseT switcher for HDMI signals, and Magenta showed the new 48×48 Voyager chassis, TVOne had the first UK outing of the CORIO 3 Master, and VBrick demonstrated the latest VBOS IP system all of which are distributed exclusive to True Colours and the Midwich group.’
Exhibiting alongside True Colours was one of its vendors, Atlona. President of Atlona, Ilya Khayn said: ‘Technology Exposed was another success for Atlona. We released our new PRO2HD HDBaseT Matrix switcher to the UK market and had a chance to present our award winning HDMI testing kit. We at Atlona are very excited about our partnership with Midwich and I am looking forward to growing the brand through multiple channels in the UK and European markets.’
Of particular interest to many visitors was the joint release by Samsung and Microsoft of their new technology known as Surface II. Attendees registered their interest in partnering with Midwich, the sole UK distributor of Surface II, to sell the device which allows several users to manipulate items on the screen at once. This is thanks to technology that can process more than 50 simultaneous touches. In addition, Surface II, being only four inches thick, can be mounted vertically as well as horizontally.
Pepe Dijkstra of Samsung said: ‘Thank you for the hospitality and the great facilities to show SUR40 (Surface II) for the first time outside a Samsung/Microsoft event in the world. Your partners and customers were obviously impressed to find themselves looking at one of the few prototypes on the planet. It was great that you invited Aftermouse, Xface, Infusion and Black Marble, and I think that all of them had good opportunities to meet your current resellers and to discuss opportunities and strategies to go together to market when the product is available.’
Also worth noting were the mobile computing devices manufactured by Psion. Used in physically hostile environments, these rugged units can be hand-held or vehicle-mounted improving efficiency and productivity. Wayne Shaylor from SCC, which also held its sales meeting at the event said: ‘The show was great yesterday, another well put together event. Thanks for your hospitality.’
Darren Lewitt, AV director at Midwich said: ‘I am so proud for everyone involved that so many of our customers now attend and appreciate this event. Many people have commented that it is now one of the biggest shows on the calendar. With more than 700 people attending it takes some organisation but it is well worth it. It was an excellent achievement to be able to show off new technologies from all our businesses. There were just too many new technologies on show to talk about them all but the Microsoft/Samsung developed Surface solution was very popular.’
Stephen Fenby, managing director of Midwich said: ‘I would like to thank everyone involved in the show for a really first class, professional event. Talking to the vendors and customers, it is clear that they were very impressed with the quality of what we achieved.’
