By Steven Sachoff, editor
TENERIFE, Spain—Samsung Techwin held its annual partner and press event here in March, with company executives outlining the significant progress made over the past year towards Samsung’s goal of becoming the number one security solutions provider in Europe by 2011, as well as ambitious plans for the coming year.
of the good results it posted for 2008 despite the economy. Rather than just being a manufacturer, Samsung’s strategy is to become a “total solutions provider,” said Chang. As the company continues to aggres-
STOCKHOLM—Despite the difficult economic environment, Assa Abloy posted record sales for 2008, helped by a series of 18 acquisitions during the course of the year, according to annual results released by the company in February.
Sales for 2008 amounted to SEK 34.9 bn or approximately EUR 3.22bn, an increase of four percent over the previous year, while operating income (EBIT) reached SEK 5.53bn (EUR 509.7mln) excluding restructuring and non-recurring costs, which amounted to an increase of one percent over 2007.
In the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, sales amounted to SEK 9.47bn, or an increase of 9 percent over the same period a year earlier. EBIT amounted to SEK 1.47bn, a two percent increase over Q4 2007.
Sales in the EMEA region stood at SEK 3.63bn, up from SEK 3.52bn in 2007, with organic growth falling 9 percent in the region in 2008.Ger- many alone among West European markets showed an increase in sales in 2008, while Eastern Europe and Africa markets weakened.
Samsung’s dedication to the European security market was evident in the presence of top management from both Korea and its European headquarters in the UK at the event, as well as a very large group of partners from the UK to Russia and nearly everywhere in between.
Samsung president and CEO Chang Suk-oh reiterated the importance Samsung was placing on security as a strategic business inside the company, and said the company had been “busy remaining sunny” in light
of dedicated offices across the continent. In 2008 the company said it would open three new offices, but Jake Kim, Samsung’s managing director for Europe, noted that goal had actually been surpassed, as Samsung
opened five new offices in 2008, leaving it with operations in the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia and the Czech Republic. The company is not stopping there, however. Plans call for two new offices to open this year, followed by two more in 2010, with Turkey and Denmark among the new locations.
In addition to expanding through new offices, Samsung is planning a major rollout of 40 new products in 2009, which will hit across the board, from cameras and DSP technology to DVRs to analytics, thermal imaging technology and access control. Kim said an integrated access control system was set for launch in the second half of 2009.
See Samsung on page 20
Samsung Techwin European partners at Mt. Teide, Tenerife
sively launch products and expand across Europe, its partner network will be key to success, Chang explained.
With that in mind, Samsung is supporting its partner network with a growing number
Neurotechnology takes face recognition a step further
AFFING, Germany—Abus Security-Center has entered the video surveillance management market with the release of a new software management system.
The company’s Eytron video management software was developed by Abus Security-Center’s own team of engineers at its development department in Kiel, and is designed for deployments of various sizes, and comes in three versions—Basic, Professional and Enterprise.
Depending on the system requirements, Eytron can handle up to 64 cameras for recording and various compression standards including H.264, MPEG- 4 and MJPEG. The software supports Abus Security-Center’s Eyseo and Eytron products as well as analog and IP cameras from other manufacturers.
By Steven Sachoff, editor
VILNIUS, Lithuania—Neurotechnology, a provider of biometric identification technologies based here, has introduced a new SDK for face identification that it says will expand the application of facial recognition by enabling the identification of passive users in real time via video surveillance cameras.
Unlike most facial recognition systems that require the user to actively look into a camera, Neurotechnology’s VeriLook Surveillance SDK is intended for real-time identification of faces from high-resolution digital surveillance cameras that can be mounted in airports, retail stores, on the street or in other locations where passers-by may not be stopping to look directly into a camera. VeriLook Surveillance can also be used for time-attendance control, with a
camera mounted near an entrance, which allows fast, automatic counting and/or recognition of individuals as they pass through.
The SDK can process face images in real time video streams and match them against an internal database like a watch-list of crime suspects. Recognized faces are immediately reported to the system, and once a face is detected, it is tracked in all successive frames of video until it disappears from camera view. The VeriLook Surveillance SDK also enables automatic enrollment of faces from a video source and can add new biometric facial templates to the database or watch-list on the fly.
To increase accuracy, VeriLook Surveilance uses multiple frames from the camera, according to Justas Kranauskas, head of face and iris recognition R&D at Neurotechnology.
“Standard implementation just takes one frame from the camera and matches it against a watch list, but what we do is we analyze all the video stream while the face is in front of the camera, and we use all that information to find a positive match,” he said.
The technology is currently in use in trials in several real-world environments and has also been tested at the Neurotechnology offices to effective results, according to Neurotechnology’s business development director, Irmantas Naujikas.
The company is working with integrators and distributors around the world to bring VeriLook Surveillance to market, with integrators playing a particularly important role.
“Because it’s an SDK, integrators are crucial,” Naujikas. Neurotechnology can do custom
See Face on page 20
Serbia’s CCTV Centar Master keeps on growing
By Steven Sachoff, editor
BELGRADE—Already Serbia’s biggest independent distributor of security products, CCTV Centar Master recently got bigger with the opening of a new, state-of-the art facility in Belgrade, and plans call for more expansion and additional employees over the course of this year.
Covering nearly 3,000 square meters, Master’s new headquarters consists of a 1,500-square-meter warehouse, a showroom, presentation room and a 60-seat training facility. The warehouse portion of the building is unique in that it is actually two warehouses, Master’s executive director Dejan Petrovic, told Security Systems News Europe, with one warehouse serving as a customs-free zone for imported products, which allows the company to pass on savings to clients.
Master is putting an increasing emphasis on training, and with that in mind, the new
training facility now plays host to a training session every week. As Master supplies security products across the board, sessions will run the gamut from CCTV (Master’s primary area of activity) to alarm systems, fire prevention, access control and intercoms, Petrovic said.
After establishing a commanding position in Serbia over the past two decades, Master began looking further afield, moving into Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Four years ago Master opened an office in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s second biggest city, and within two years Master became the market leader there. The growth in Bosnia has continued, and as a result Petrovic said the company plans to build a new facility there too, probably before the end of this year.
It’s not just real estate that Master is investing in either. In order to better serve its client network, which currently stands at
CCTV Centar Master’s new Belgrade headquarters
some 750, Petrovic said Master planned to hire 10 to 15 new staff this year, bringing the total number of employees to approximately 45.
Master’s clients include prominent government organizations and private companies in both Serbia and abroad, such as the offices of the government of Serbia, the OSCE offices in Banja Luka, the Serbian embassy in Washington, Interpol, the Japanese embassy in Spain, the Hyatt Hotel and numerous banks. SSNE
References:
Archives