Written by Joel Griffin.
It has been said that video surveillance is responsible for driving growth in the security industry as a whole and it is easy to see why many people feel that way. Anyone who has ever been to an industry tradeshow can personally attest to the fact that security camera vendors easily outnumber their security counterparts in show aisles by a wide margin. But despite its prominent position, video surveillance is also the product segment that is the most influx.
Pundits have long foreseen industry consolidation as inevitable and predictions of increased M&A activity in the market have certainly come to fruition. In the past two years, Canon has acquired both Milestone Systems and Axis Communications, two of biggest industry players in video surveillance software and hardware respectively.
Consolidation aside, there are also a number of other elements that are having a big impact on the industry, as well as on the adoption of surveillance technology in general. SecurityInfoWatch.com (SIW) recently reached out to a number of industry experts to get their take on what developments we can expect to see unfold in market during 2016.
SIW: What do you think will be the most significant trend that takes shape within the video surveillance market in 2016?
Karl Erik Traberg, head of corporate communications, Milestone Systems: We believe that video enabling will gain momentum in 2016. Video management software fits into a broad range of business management applications, such as enterprise resource management, operations and supply chain management as well as customer relationship management. Milestone refers to this as video enabling business. The adoption is speeding up as vendors and system integrators learn to include both security and business solutions in their offerings. The key opportunity for the Milestone partner network is to shift the conversation with customers from cost to business value and to generate interest in larger investments in new technology solutions for enhanced business purposes.
SIW: Video analytics have experienced somewhat of a renaissance in the industry over the past several years. What do you think the future holds for analytics and do you see any new capabilities on the horizon that could further improve situational awareness for end users?
Traberg: Analytics technology is definitely having a comeback in the security industry, but we think that use of analytics in video systems for non-security applications is an area that will also see rapid development. Recently, we have seen concept demonstrations that bring video and analytics into your local sports club. 3D tracking of people can be used for play statistics and heat maps in an economical way, which will give coaches beyond even the high-end environments, such as NFL in the U.S. and Champions League in Europe, new knowledge and new ways to analyze and understand their teams. A Milestone Solution Partner in Australia has integrated a very interesting marketing solution with our software, Axis cameras and IBM analytics that works with digital billboards to register relevant types of cars approaching and rotate the billboard on display to reach the best target audience with the customer’s message. Another Australian innovator in our network is using our VMS with water measurement analytics in that country’s growing Safe Cities initiatives. Options abound with an open platform VMS ability to integrate with analytics and other systems or devices.
Read the whole roundtable that features the overall industry trens analyzed by Milestone executives.