NETGEAR has announced its participation in the OpenAV.Cloud initiative, an industry-wide ambition to bring together leading AV manufacturers and technology providers to drive the adoption of open and standardised cloud connectivity, and API-driven innovation.
The move commits NETGEAR to transforming the professional AV industry through cloud-managed, software-defined infrastructure solutions in what the company claims is “the AV industry’s most significant transformation in decades” – and positions the company to address persistent challenges in traditional AV deployments, including complex commissioning processes, walled vendor ecosystems and on-site maintenance and management requirements for distributed installations.
“The professional AV industry stands at an inflection point,” said Richard Jonker, vice president of marketing and business development at NETGEAR Enterprise. “After decades of hardware-centric, proprietary systems that required specialised expertise to deploy and maintain, we’re witnessing a fundamental shift toward cloud-managed, software-defined infrastructure.”
According to NETGEAR, traditional AV infrastructure has long faced scalability barriers, with systems operating as isolated islands that make integration with broader IT infrastructure difficult and costly. NETGEAR’s cloud-first approach eliminates these limitations through dynamic, software-controlled environments that adapt to changing requirements in real time.
NETGEAR’s Engage Controller platform exemplifies the company’s cloud-first philosophy, evolving from a configuration tool into a comprehensive AV system management platform. When integrated with OpenAV.Cloud’s API-driven framework, networks managed by the Engage platform can become part of a larger ecosystem where devices and services from hundreds of partner vendors can communicate natively and securely.
The shift to cloud-managed AV infrastructure enables new business models throughout the AV ecosystem. For integrators, the technology opens revenue streams through subscription-based monitoring, maintenance and support services, replacing project-based revenue with recurring client relationships. End customers can scale gradually, paying for capacity as needed rather than making large upfront investments.
“The future of AV cannot be built by any single vendor,” Jonker added. “Today’s customers demand solutions that ‘just work’ regardless of brand, especially as AV systems become more IP-centric and cloud-integrated.”
Organisations embracing this shift will benefit from greater flexibility, reduced operational overhead and enhanced ability to adapt to changing requirements, claimed Jonker. NETGEAR’s participation positions the company and its more than 450 partners at the centre of what Jonker calls “the AV industry’s most significant transformation in decades”.
