The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has led to a shelter-in-place society in which Zoom seems to have become the primary means of “face-to-face” communications.

At CE Pro, we took the opportunity to use the platform for an editors’ discussion of how the coronavirus is impacting the custom integration industry from a business standpoint, as well as for those who are under stay-at-home orders.

So welcome to the first edition of the CE Pro Podcast, featuring executive editor Arlen Schweiger moderating the chat with editor/chief content officer Jason Knott, senior editor Bob Archer and web editor Andrew Nichols.

In the video “roundtable” (perhaps round-laptop is more apt) discussion, we dig right into some areas where custom integrators that are still conducting usual business – they have been labeled “essential critical infrastructure workers” by the federal government – may look to focus.

Integrators Can Address Work-From-Home Needs

The stay-at-home mandates by states have created a new work-from-home paradigm that, coupled with families who also have children now being homeschooled, has generated a need for better home networks as bandwidth is strained, for instance.

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There’s no telling how long it will be before companies will be able to get back to having typical offices, and even then, the work-from-home demand could still be large.

“There’s a lot of interesting opportunities that have come up because of this that I think might be long-term opportunities for integrators that have now been spurred by coronavirus,” Knott says.

CE Pro has been highlighting many of these increasingly emerging opportunities, and we delve into some that are worth exploring and why they could be a boon both now and moving forward for the longer haul.

On the flip side, with so many people stuck in their homes for so many hours these days, CE Pro has also been doing a series of posts about ways to stay entertained during these tough times.

The editors talk about some of these picks for movies, music and video games – a big part of what CE pros help customers with is installing systems to better enjoy such content, after all.

Check out the entire discussion for this week and stay tuned for more from the editors and other industry insiders on the way in the CE Pro Podcast, which will be available for download via iTunes and Google Play, as well as via the CEProMag YouTube channel.

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