September is a busy time for D&H Distributing, which mounted a major presence at the CEDIA Expo this month and will hold its annual Digital Convergence Expo here next week.
At CEDIA, the national computer and CE distributor was joined by exhibitor partner Hewlett-Packard, which had CE products and representatives on hand at the D&H booth to explain how its product line integrates with home technologies from other D&H vendors.
D&H also used CEDIA as a forum to tout its recently announced CEA Affinity Program, targeted at the more than 800 specialty A/V retailers and system integrators in the Consumer Electronics Association’s PARA and TechHome divisions. The program allows those members to source product at favorable pricing and provides access to D&H’s business resources, the distributor said.
Also shown at CEDIA were CE and digital home market wares by new D&H vendors Ergotron, Humax, MOView/SeaLand, RCA, Sanus Systems, Terk and Vanguard — plus 30 new housewares and small appliance brands including MC Appliance, Oregon Scientific, Salton and Tiger Corp.
Meanwhile, D&H is completing preparations for its fourth annual Digital Convergence Expo, which will be held Sept. 29 at the Radisson Penn Harris Hotel and Convention Center in nearby Camp Hill, Pa. A destination for dealers, resellers and integrators nationwide, the trade show will feature some 60 manufacturers and 12 rotating seminars and technical panels from such industry leaders as Microsoft, Intel and Cisco on convergence technology and strategies for selling into the digital home marketplace.
The event will also feature several panel discussions on business practices and strategies, which will afford attendees the opportunity to offer comments and pose questions to category experts.
“Customers need more strategic, big- picture instruction on how to succeed,” said Dan Schwab, D&H’s marketing VP. “While we’re still educating resellers and CE dealers on cross-market technologies, both sides are becoming [savvier] about the merchandise itself. They’re looking for more sophisticated approaches to pitching these turn-key solutions in real-world environments.”
He added: “That’s the value of hosting a range of manufacturers in one venue: You get the full breadth of business-oriented expertise, based on what’s really working in the field.”
Educational sessions will be presented by Cisco on new SMB networking opportunities, Microsoft on its Media Center platform, Creative Labs on the MP3 revolution, Cables to Go on making sense of A/V wiring, Russound on basic distributed audio, Harmony on universal learning remotes, Intel on the digital home, and Western Digital on its Netcenter offering.
More information on the Convergence Expo is available at www.dandh.com/convergence05.
