ASIS 2010, I: Major market, technology trends

whole building integration, and energy management.

At Panasonic, president Bill Taylor was talking energy management, which has been a focus for years, but one which has been emphasized more recently with last year’s Sanyo acquisition — and the integration of other Panasonic products into vertical solutions, especially for education and retail.

Energy management for residential applications was a topic of conversation at the Honeywell booth, where new Honeywell Security and Communications president JoAnna Sohovich, said it is a natural for Honeywell — famed for its thermostats — to offer a security/energy management solution for residential customers.

Entwistle writes that the addition/integration of energy/building management systems into the fold was a focus at Johnson Controls (showing its Metasys building management systems for the first time at a security show), at Schneider Electric, and elsewhere.

Then there were IP cameras — everywhere, with manufacturers emphasizing education and training. Arecont Vision’s Scott Schafer told Entwistle that a nine-hour training session involves thirty minutes on products and the bulk of the time on topics such as designing, configuring a system and “lensing options … It’s all math,” he said.

Talking about his company’s partnering with Stanley and Niscayah to provide a new hosted-video solution for smaller businesses, Axis Communications general manager Fredrik Nilsson said: “It’s a second convergence revolution.”

More about IP camers

Steven Titch writes in Emergency Management that the rapid and energetic convergence of wireless, networking, and HD video consumer electronics is a sub-story to the digital video revolution in surveillance. CSOs and CISOs now know what HD looks like. They go home to 16 x 9 plasma HD flat screens that can provide indisputable visual proof of an umpire’s blown call. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Droid finally have delivered on the promise of mobile broadband. “Usually it’s business that leads the applications curve, but in video security, it’s the other way around,” Titch writes.

Titch notes that one of the major product trends at ASIS from established VMS companies was their introduction of IP video and video management for the medium- to low-end. As Eric Fullerton, chief sales and marketing officer for Milestone Systems, told Titch, “We don’t want people to choose analog over IP simply because they don’t have the budget.” Milestone, Avigilon, Genetec, March Networks, NICE Systems, and Timesight all in some way announced versions of their high-end video management software for small and medium-sized systems. Even in cases where these vendors may have had an existing package targeting the SME segment, that offering is being replaced by a version that contains or adapts the core software in the higher end system.

“The idea is to offer users an easy way to shift incrementally from analog to digital, then set an upgrade path as users grow their installations,” Titch writes. “Additional features and functions, such as storage and analytics, can be purchased a la carte as needed.”

Titch concludes:

Finally, the networking benefits of digital video may help larger users navigate the often confusing terrain of physical security information management (PSIM). Again, once agencies begin to integrate and manipulate video data through geophysical databases like Google Earth and route them through computer-aided dispatch and mass notification systems, the increased value and utility immediately become tangible.