Case Study: AZUR SPACE

The delivery of a compelling presentation is equally dependent on the speaker’s comfort and the technology driving the content. If either is lacking, the quality of the presentation and the audience experience is almost sure to suffer.

At AZUR SPACE Solar Power, a global developer and producer of multi-junction solar cells for outer space and terrestrial applications, recent conference room upgrades and expansions focused on these two important tenets. The comfort and technology improvements were necessary based on company growth, and increasing interest from customers to visit with AZUR SPACE developers.

“While we are best known for our space and satellite projects, we recently added two terrestrial markets to our corporate business portfolio focused on concentrator photovoltaics and CPV assemblies, or Tracker Systems,” said Martin Koenig, director of IT for AZUR SPACE Solar Power. “These terrestrial markets are very large compared to the smaller space market, and we have seen escalating interest from scientific colleagues and customers and who want to visit our facility and learn about the integration of these products. Therefore, the requirements for our conference rooms has grown immensely.”

With 250 employees, the AZUR SPACE facility is modest in scale, with five small conference rooms to accommodate 10-20 people. Therefore, the initial focus was on minimize cables and visible equipment.

“We have seen escalating interest from scientific colleagues and customers and who want to visit our facility and learn about the integration of these products. Therefore, the requirements for our conference rooms has grown immensely”
– Martin Koenig, director of IT, AZUR SPACE Solar Power

“We really strove for comfort and creating a good atmosphere,” said Koenig, who managed the systems integration in house. “Having HDMI and audio cables running throughout the room simply does not invite comfort. And if the visitor wants to connect his mobile device or laptop, there needs to be a clear access point, since we do not permit visitors to use our network in our efforts to maintain product secrecy.”

While clean integration and simple connectivity were important priorities, Koenig and his team also wanted to ensure that presentations were enriched with high-resolution content. With each of the five conference rooms in use for 8-10 hours a day, Koenig set his sights on technologies that would address all of his important needs outlined above, and operate reliably without operator intervention.

The AZUR SPACE team quickly narrowed its choices down to two companies, ultimately choosing Atlona.

“We chose two Atlona collaboration products: The CLSO-612ED and the AT-HDVS-200, the latter of which provides the signal extending capabilities we need,” said Koenig.

“Atlona has 99.9% uptime, which is as good as it gets…the equipment is intuitive enough so that our technicians can remotely connect and quickly pinpoint a technical issue.”
– Koenig

That flexibility in supporting many formats and resolutions was pertinent to ensure any visiting presenter could connect to the system quickly and without technical complications. The AT-HDVS-200 system combines an auto-switching transmitter, the AT-HDVS-200-TX, with a companion receiver that Koenig says us particularly useful for older displays that do not support HD. The transmitter accommodates three source devices and mounts discreetly under the meeting tables to further enhance the clean look and feel in each room.

The CLSO-612ED is the core Atlona collaboration system for each meeting room, offering six inputs (HDBaseT, HDMI, analog) with 4K video support.

“We quickly discovered how important high-resolution support is for our presenters, and the Atlona systems ensure that visitors who wish to share CAD files and other detailed content have the
infrastructure to support their needs,” said Koenig. “But regardless of what format our presenters desire, these systems provide the flexibility they need.”

Beyond Atlona, all five meeting rooms feature Panasonic projectors, touch displays and media displays to present the contents. And since launching this summer, the interoperability across the board has been near perfect.

“Atlona has 99.9% uptime, which is as good as it gets,” said Koenig. “And the equipment is intuitive enough so that our technicians can remotely connect and quickly pinpoint a technical issue. The CLSO and HDVS products have a very simple interface, so configuring the system for interoperability with our Panasonic projectors and remote controls proved very quick and simple. The documentation is clear, and there are no confusing declarations.”

Moving forward, Koenig anticipates that AZUR SPACE’s collaboration needs will grow as they move to a new facility.

“As our company continues to grow, next year we expect to retain a new facility with three floors, and we will integrate conference rooms on each floor,” said Koenig. “We will do this with Atlona, without question.”

“We chose two Atlona collaboration products: The CLSO-612ED and the AT-HDVS-200, the latter of which provides the signal extending capabilities we need”
– Koenig