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Digital signage solution Screenly chooses Canonical's Ubuntu Core software

May 18, 2016

Today Screenly, a digital signage solution for the Raspberry Pi, and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, an open-source platform, jointly announced a partnership to build Screenly on Ubuntu Core, according to a press release from Screenly. Screenly is adopting Ubuntu Core to give its customers a platform that is secure, simple to manage and available on the Raspberry Pi.

Screenly commercializes a digital signage box or "player" and a cloud-based interface. This enables restaurants, universities, shops, offices and anyone with a modern TV or monitor to create a secure, reliable digital sign or dashboard, according to the release. This solution is capable of displaying full HD quality moving imagery, web content and static images.

Ubuntu Core offers a production environment for IoT devices. This new rendition of Ubuntu offers the ability to update and manage the OS and any applications independently. This means that Screenly players will be kept up to date with the latest version of the Screenly software, and also benefit from continuous OS updates for enhanced security, stability and performance. Transactional updates means that any update can automatically be rolled back, ensuring reliable performance even in a failed update scenario.

"Ubuntu Core enables us to be more flexible and to focus on our software rather than managing an OS and software distribution across our large fleet of devices," said Viktor Petersson, CEO of Screenly.

Ubuntu Core devices can be managed from a central location, allowing Screenly users to manage a fleet of digital signs without on-site visits.  A compromised display can be corrected immediately and the security of devices that are in public sphere is improved.

"In terms of hardware, it can run on multiple hardware platforms and therefore if one of our partners requires a different hardware platform, the need to rebuild and retest our whole solution for a new OS goes away," Petersson said. "This takes away bargaining power of the hardware vendor and gives the power back to the service providers, which for us means we'll see greater innovation in this area."

Ubuntu Core also offers standardized OS and interfaces, available across a variety of chipsets and hardware. This means that Screenly can expand its portfolio of players across platforms without the costs traditionally associated with porting software to a new architecture, the release said.

"Ubuntu Core is perfectly suited to applications in digital signage. Its application isolation and transactional updates provide unrivalled security, stability and ease of use, something vital for constantly visible content," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical. "We're pleased to be working with Screenly, whose agile approach is a perfect example of innovation in the digital signage space."