Being in the AV programming industry, which is highly technical, requires us to stay on top of the ever-changing technology. New products and programming languages are being introduced all the time. It requires our team at AVPA to constantly be researching, reading, and staying open to new things that could benefit our clients. Any programming company that doesn’t do this is bound to die a slow death, as technology eventually passes them by.
We often talk with potential clients who have done some research of their own prior to talking to us. They have looked into some of the latest technologies and programming languages related to the work they want us to do and come to us with requests or suggestions. We love it when we get to work with clients who take the initiative to gain an understanding of what we do and who know what they want going in. One thing we’ve noticed with these types of clients, however, is that they often mistake the latest technology for the best technology.
Every project we do is unique. Some require that we use the latest programming language or technology to give the client the functionality they’re looking for, but some don’t. When a project doesn’t need it, it doesn’t make sense to use it, and doing so could even cause problems for the end user. For example, we recently had a client who wanted us to use HTML5 for his system. We certainly could have done this, but some of the client’s existing touchpanels didn’t support HTML5. Using HTML5 would have meant that the client wouldn’t have been able to have a consistent user experience on all of the touchpanels. In this case, it would have been a disservice to our client to use the latest technology. The system’s users likely would have been confused and frustrated by the different interfaces on the various touchpanels. Fortunately, the client agreed and allowed us to use a markup language that was better suited to the system.
We’ve had other clients who have requested that we use C# as the programming language on their projects—knowing that C# has the ability to deliver advanced functionality and modularization for complex programming projects. While C# is great, and we have a talented C# programmer as a part of the AVPA team, this programming language isn’t suitable for all projects. Many of the projects we work on simply don’t need the functionality C# provides and using it would be superfluous and add unnecessary costs to the client.
We certainly value input from our clients, as they know what they need better than anyone. And at the end of the day, we want to make our clients happy. However, to do so, we need our clients to trust us to use the technologies that are best suited to their particular projects. Sometimes, that means using the latest and greatest technology, and sometimes it means using the tried and true.
If you want to work with a Crestron programming company that has your best interests in mind, contact us at AVPA.
