Audinate announced Dante AV-A today: https://www.audinate.com/news/press-releases/audinate-partners-with-aspeed-to-bring-dante-av-to-popular-av-over-ip-chipset/
The quick summary: Dante Video now works for ASPEED's AST1530/1535 System-On-A-Chip (SOC). Manufactures can enable Dante AV-A with a software update. The ASPEED chip is widely used and 9 leading manufacturing partners have licensed Dante AV-A including AMX by Harman, Aurora Multimedia, AVPro Global, Cypress, GoMax, HDCVT, ProAVIT, SY Electronics and WyreStorm.
This further highlights that Audinate is becoming more of a software licensing company. Its key video products - Dante AV-H and now Dante AV-A - are software packages for popular chips. Audinate play no part in supplying, printing, storing and distributing the chips. They only supply the software and clip the ticket whenever a Dante enabled product is shipped or activated.
Geez, I made the most horrific spelling mistake on the topic name.
Should read: "Audinate is a Software Company"
*facepalm*
Jack, can we please have an edit button?
When I first looked at Audinate in 2018, I wasn’t sure whether OEMs were buying Dante chips for the protocol or for Audinate’s technical prowess in digital-to-analog audio chips. I was also skeptical on its claims to be a “software” company.
4 years later, I think it’s clear to me now that OEMs choose Dante for the protocol and to be able to join the ecosystem of Dante compatible products. I am now also convinced that Audinate is a software company.
There are products the company sells that are clearly software - network management software, software libraries that developers (e.g. Zoom) can use to enable communication with Dante devices and software applications that allow Mac/PCs to input/output to Dante devices.
The company is now also expressing what it had traditionally done with its own chips and cards, in the form of software. Dante IP Core is a software package for programmable integrated circuits - think firmware for the OEM’s own chips but with hardware acceleration.
Dante Embedded Platform enables Dante on Linux . As more AV devices become more computer-like, this becomes a low cost way to turn them into Dante compatible appliances. And now with in-field activation, OEMs can push the licensing costs onto the end user. An “Enable Dante” in-app purchase if you will.
As AV devices become more computer-like in its guts over time, Audinate will sell a greater percentage of software packages. This will result in higher gross margins, less inventory, less supply chain to manage, etc.
Audinate reminds me most of Apple’s MFi Program that supports its third-party ecosystems including HomeKit, GymKit, AirPlay, Find My, Car Play, etc. In most cases, Apple doesn’t provide any hardware but they do provide the software that speaks the protocol. In order to join the ecosystem, OEMs need to join the MFi Program and pay Apple a license fee. No hardware, no inventory, and pure software margins.
This to me is one of the most interesting aspect of Audinate. The move from hardware to software, and the scalability the company gains from the shift.