"Based on the new business from ICE, we are confident 2016 will be another stellar year for us"

How did the 2016 ICE turn out for Advantech-Innocore?

ICE 2016 was a big success for Advantech. We achieved all our goals with respect to finding new opportunities, introducing our new products to new and existing customers and even cementing some significant new business contracts for the coming years.

What were the most discussed trends at the show?

The trend that has most relevance to us as the most established supplier of hardware platforms to the gaming industry and the leading industrial PC manufacturer in the world is the trend towards higher and higher graphical performance.

Screens are getting larger, slot machines are including more screens and the resolution (pixel count) is increasing. These trends are a big advantage to Advantech since our platforms are both high performance and very scalable with open architecture designs that allow for one platform to cover a wide range of performance levels and to be upgraded to accommodate more screens or higher definition content. Our new DPX- S440 for example, that saw its debut at the ICE show, offers excellent graphics and video decoding from the integrated AMD R-Series SOC APU (formerly Merlin Falcon) on up to three screens.

However for more demanding applications the product also includes a standard PCI-Express graphics expansion slot so customers can integrate a high performance discrete graphics card to reach higher levels of performance. Provision for a standard graphics card slot saves the customer money over proprietary cards and opens up the widest selection of graphics card to fit all performance requirements. We can also supply a wide range of long lifecycle high performance graphics cards which can be preinstalled in our systems.

Furthermore our large and growing range of LCD monitor and touchscreen products is of great interest to customers looking to update the look of their monitors. We have 4k LCD products, curved screen LCDs and have seen especially good interest in our touchscreen products offering bezel-less and sheer glass front surfaces for a look popular with the latest slot machine designs.

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2015 was a record year of sales for Advantech

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How has the growth of iGaming influenced the development of the London exhibition?

igaming companies with all kinds of igaming offerings from fantasy sports to virtual sports betting, or online casinos were much in evidence at the show.

Advantech’s huge range of computing products finds applications across all areas of gaming including igaming and we are actively working on several projects involving sports betting and virtual reality gaming. We offer platforms from server level through secure platforms for land based games to portable and digital signage products.

Which of your products attracted most attention from visitors?

ICE 2016 saw Advantech showing the largest number of new products that we have ever brought to London for the show. We has two brand new board level products (DPX-S440, DPX-E250) and two system level products (DPX-E135 and DPX-S2440). Apart from these new gaming platforms we also showcased a broad selection of Advantech’s other products that are applicable to the gaming industry. Products included industrial LCD touchcreen monitors with exciting innovations such as bezel-less touchscreens, high brightness, remote management, vandal proof features and new curved screen models.

And alongside our highly successful industrial flash(SQF) product line, we also displayed industrial motherboards in many formats such as COM Express, Mini-ITX, Q7 and including CPU technologies from Intel, AMD and ARM (RISC).

Overall I think the most interest from visitors was focused on our new gaming platforms, the curved LCDs and bezel-less touchscreens. The key products we were showing specifically for Europe are the DPX-E130 a complete platform tailored for the Italian market, and the DPX-E135 targeting low cost markets needing a high performance and low cost platform and including some special features for European markets such as secure precise realtime clock and specialized GPIO.

What happened after the conclusion of ICE? Are you seeing results yet?

After ICE we will be busy with all the follow up sales activities. 2015 was a record year of sales for Advantech to the gaming sector and based on the new business from ICE 2016 we are confident 2016 will be another stellar year for us as we continue to grow our business and provide the widest range of computing solutions for all segments of the global gaming market.

Clarion Events expects that by 2020 ICE will see the exhibition fully occupying the entire site at ExCel. Will there be room for start-ups, small companies and next-generation operators at the international trade show?

Advantech-Innocore products give the gaming OEM a fully compliant platform to develop next generation gaming machines. Our 15 years’ experience in the industry mean customers can select our products safe in the knowledge that they will be able to obtain regulatory approval for their products and have a stable, well supported platform that will be maintained in mass production for as long as they need it. Our standard product range certainly enables small and medium sized customers to compete. Considering the global gaming market many of those smaller OEMs will not use the large tradeshows like ICE and G2E. Rather they will concentrate on their local markets.

At the other end of the spectrum Advantech is uniquely positioned to provide custom and ODM solutions to the largest of multi-national gaming companies. As the gaming focused product division of the $1B Advantech Corp. we can provide design and manufacturing services to deliver to the customer the highest quality designs, products and global support from a company equal to their demands and equal to their stature.