By Daniel Gelinas, contributing editor
WELLINGBOROUGH, UK—A recent report from IMS Research predicts the remote video monitoring and surveillance market will see rapid and substantial growth over the next four years. The term RVMaS refers to network camera-based solutions that allow the end user to remotely view live or recently recorded video in security and non-security related applications. The question is: How much of a threat to established security companies are telcos going to become as RVMaS grows? According to IMS Research Security & Fire Group market analyst Gary Wong, “telcos, ISPs and mobile/wireless operators could potentially threaten the established monitored security market in the mid to long term.”
Wong pointed out communications companies are well positioned to offer RVMaS services since they typically possess a large installed base of subscribers, the infrastructure required to offer RVMaS products and
services, sizable marketing budgets, and strong brand awareness. Additionally, Wong said since telcos’ traditional core businesses are on the decline due mainly to saturation, they are actively looking for exciting new products to increase customer retention and generate more revenue.
“The threat towards the traditional residential monitoring market will be dependant upon how quickly the communications companies market and educate consumers about the
RVMaS proposition,” said Wong in an email interview. “As the consumer becomes more educated about monitoring and surveillance solutions, they may begin purchasing products based on functionality and not standard convention.”
Wong said in order to mitigate the encroaching telco
presence, traditional security companies will need to offer customers more innovative products and services. Wong points to a recently announced partnership between ADT and iControl as an example.
Bob Tucker, public relations director at ADT said that the iControl partnership gives ADT dealers just such an innovative edge. “[Our dealers] will have a much broader portfolio of solutions to offer customers to meet their needs,” Tucker said in an email interview. “We have already presented an overview of interactive services to our dealers and they are very excited about the potential.”
The release from IMS Research claims revenues from the residential RVMaS market were $158 million in 2008. IMS Research predicts those revenues to more than triple to $478.3 million by 2013. SSNE
“Telcos, ISPs and mobile/wireless
operators could potentially threaten
the established monitored security
market in the mid to long term.”
— Gary Wong, IMS Research
Managed services take center stage at TechSec Solutions
By Daniel Gelinas, contributing editor
DALLAS—The buzz at TechSec Solutions this year was, of course, all about convergence. It has for five years been the place where people have talked about the merging of IT and physical security, both through culture and technology. However, many panelists in the show’s educational sessions also spent plenty of time talking about the advent of the “as-a-service” model (security as a service or SaaS as it has become known, for example), and assured those in attendance that it was the future of the industry, as it is the present of the IT industry.
Axis Communications general manager Americas, Fredrik Nilsson; Brivo president Steve VanTill; and Secure-i, Inc. IT director Andres Armeda comprised the panel for a day one session entitled “Security as a Service: The Next Wave of Integrated IP-based Monitoring,” during which the three offered reasons for moving into IP, converging your technologies and people, and offering a wider variety of managed services to end users.
Nilsson pointed out that when TechSec started out five years ago, the “as a service” model was just beginning to gain in popularity through software-as-a-service applications such as email services like
Hotmail and Gmail. Technology, said Nilsson had changed a lot in the last 20 years and would continue to change and drive the growth of managed services that dealers could offer. “IP and surveillance and IP and convergence was in its beginning, and now it’s very much real,” Nilsson said. “I think what we’re going to see here today is that security as a service, in a similar way is, very much in its beginning here this year, and we’re going to see great development over the next couple years.” Nilsson also warned security professionals that they had competition and provided a list of international telcos providing various managed services to their end users.
“All of these telcos are running hosted services to their customers. Why are they interested in this? Well, they don’t come from the security industry, but obviously they have a relationship with the customer already,” Nilsson said. “They are providing the bandwidth to them, and they’re trying to sell more services for the customers to use more bandwidth.”
VanTill pointed out one of the most important aspects of offering managed services was the cost angle. “The first [reason], which is, again, particularly relevant right now, given the way the global economy is, is that it transforms a capital expense
to an operational expense,” VanTill said. VanTill also warned while adoption could be slow, due to end user distrust of third-party control of personal data, perseverance and responsibility would overcome. “If you take a look at your personal life--look at email--you’re not really concerned with what Google’s doing with your data ... It’s a matter of trust. It really goes back to establishing a reputation as a service provider.”
Armeda talked about different drivers for the growth of SaaS. “A large increase in bandwidth, plus a drop in pricing is pushing growth,” Armeda said. Armeda insisted there were three main reasons SaaS was attractive: “It’s easy, it’s affordable, and it’s effective.” Armeda did concede storage cost was an issue in the way of wider adoption but noted storage costs, like other costs, were coming down.
Rob Hagens, CTO of Envysion, emphasized many of these points in day two’s “Technology Lightning Round.” He agreed that things would and should move more and more toward managed services, as the decreased total cost of ownership benefits the customer and the increase recurring revenue benefits the integrator and installer. “Everything becomes very easy when things become software-centric.” SSNE
ONVIF adds 18 members in 2 months
SAN RAMON, California—The Open Network Video Interface Forum (ONVIF), a body launched by Axis, Sony and Bosch in 2008 dedicated to working toward a global, open standard for the interface of network video products, announced in early March that 18 new members had come onboard in the first two months of 2009.
Most notably, Cisco, Samsung and Siemens have joined the forum as full members, while Anixter and Milestone have joined as contributing members, brining the total number of member companies to 40.
In line with the growing member base, ONVIF said it has extended the number of seats in each forum committee to a total of 5 seats, up from three. The new positions were filled through an invitation and election process that was finalized in mid-February. As a re-
sult, Cisco and Panasonic are now members of both the Steering Committee and the Technical Committee. Samsung was voted into the Technical Services Committee and the Communication Committee, while the final seats on those committees were filled by Anixter and Hikvision.
With the new members in tow, ONVIF now says it will “intensify its work toward a global, open standard for the interface of network video products.”
Meeting for all committees with their new members were scheduled to take place in Tokyo in the first week of March. These meetings, ONVIF said, will serve as the starting point for multiple work groups that will work in paralles on the continuous development of the ONVIF specification, test tool and test specification. SSNE
ASIS European conference
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security cultures spring up. Managing security in that environment can be more difficult and less efficient, Schwarzenbach explained.
Dominic Bruning from Axis will be among those speaking on the issue of physicald and IT security convergence, and a panel discussion on the topic is also slated to take place.
The issue of return on security investment should also draw a lot of attention this year, considering the global economic situation. A security system that is working well can ironically lead company management to forget why they put it in place to begin with, and
even make it a target for budget cutting, said Schwarzenbach. Security practitioners need to be able to clearly explain ROI to clients what methods are available to get achieve that. Siemens Building Technologies’ Rolf Sigg will be one of the speakers on hand to address this issue.
A small exhibition will run alongside the conference, where vendors will showcase technologies and products including IP and thermal camera technology, access control and building management solutions.
For more information on the full ASIS 2009 European conference schedule, visit www. asisonline.org. SSNE
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