Robert EastonQ. What kind of products or services does your company offer for broadcasters?
360 Systems' key products are high-definition video servers along with digital audio Instant Replay boxes used by most radio and television stations worldwide.
Q. What's new that you will exhibit at the NAB Show and what should broadcasters look for there?
We'll be showing our new MAXX family of high-definition video servers. The new MAXX-1200 has 3 video channels, 24 audio channels, and 4 Terabytes of internal storage. Its big brother, MAXX-2400HD has 4 video channels, 2 inputs, and 12 Terabytes of storage. Both are shipping now.
Q. How is your new product offering different from what's available on the market?
The new MAXX HD servers have been designed with America's mid-market in mind. They offer a lot of storage, an unusually large feature set, yet come to market at a far lower price than other servers with a comparable channel count.
Q. How has your company been affected by the current economic situation and what are you doing to get through it?
Lots of companies are set on being survivors in broadcasting and Pro AV, and these are the new customer A-list. Clearly, everyone is not in trouble — that's just a news story. We've hired more field sales people, and we work harder to get sales, but buyers are there. It's a return-on-investment story: direct mail, skilled phone work, customer visits, and demo units build sales at low cost. $250,00+ exhibits at trade shows aren't the ticket in this environment.
Q. Where are you based, and how many employees do you have? Anything else we should know about your company?
360 Systems is based in Westlake Village, Calif., just north of the Hollywood-Burbank broadcast and production centers. We have about 50 employees who do almost everything — from design through production — in our 23,000-foot building. 360 Systems is in its 37th year, and is unique in being a privately-owned manufacturer of servers.
