Nice bit of scuttlebutt @actionman.

This ties pretty closely with where Dante has been initially targeted - bigger products (mixers, etc) for bigger brands (Yamaha, etc) and bigger installations (stadiums, Sydney Trains, etc).

In Audio, CEO Aidan has said they're now moving down the value chain towards smaller gear which should bring some smaller brands on board - there are a lot out there. The shift towards software only installs should help with this too as there's no hardware (eg. chip) to design in, as long as the hardware (eg. microphone) has the on board capacity to house the Dante software.

This is a great move IMHO as it expands their TAM and hopefully avoids 'the innovators dilemma' with some smaller, simpler spec competitor coming in and bifurcating the market with a cheaper product, then creeping up to eat Audinate's lunch. Network effects should also help avoid this.

Aidan has also said that he expects a slow burn in adoption speed, there's not an inflection point or hockey stick growth coming in his opinion.

Video's a whole different, longer, lumpier story.

I've been thinking about their Iris Studio acquisition. This is, on the face of it an extension of their video play (3rd acquisition in this space) but it's really all about control (software and services). They've said as much in the presos at the time of the M&A.

Until now they've built out Audio and now Video products to get OEM's and their kit onto the Dante protocol. They've now added a bunch of control suite products - Director, Domain manager, etc to control the networked endpoints.

Iris takes quite different approach. If you think about existing Dante endpoints as a bottom up part of the network with a control layer sitting on top, Iris is more like a top down control layer / umbrella that is protocol agnostic (works on both Dante and NDI enabled products today). Video is just their starting point, no reason why this can't be extended to audio and beyond (lighting, temperature control, etc) and Aidan alluded to this in the reval preso.

If so, this could represent a pivot to negate the need for Dante to win a foot race with NDI on the Video adoption space. That would be a very interesting turn of events if they can manage it.

I'll be at the AGM on Tuesday and expect to hear more about this. It's an in person only meeting (has been hybrid in the past). I suspect this is because the competitive environment in Video (and now control) is heating up with NDI, so closed door is likely preferable.

Disc: Held