AMAG Technology and Communications Engineering Company (CEC), a systems and technology integrator, are partnering to bring CEC customers an affordable access control solution with straightforward interfaces.
For the second year in a row, systems integration revenue fell by 4 percent. Instead of paving their own straight road, integrators are facing sharp curves in adoption of new technology infrastructure and new service models.
Security systems integrators had expected to pull ahead in 2011, but instead they experienced a dismal first half of the year and a better-by-comparison but still “just average” second half. Following a 4.4 percent drop in 2010, systems integration revenue among the industry’s largest security companies fell yet again — by 3.6 percent in 2011 — leaving many wondering what it would take to get back up to speed. Integrators face sharp curves in the need to quickly adopt IP as the primary infrastructure for security systems, as well as to create business models that offer security as a service.
BCDVideo announced that all its video servers will ship standard with a five-year on-site next business day warranty from HP. This upgrades the previous standard three-year on-site warranty.
On July 2, 2012, Boca Raton, Fla.-based Tyco International announced that its ADT North America Commercial Security business unit — the industry’s largest security systems integrator based on the soon-to-be released 2012 Top Systems Integrators Report — will officially go by its new name, Tyco Integrated Security, effective immediately.
Emerging hosting approaches can include video surveillance as a service (VSaaS), remote viewing on mobile devices, virtual guarding, video verification, in the cloud solutions, remote storage and retrieval as well as fully outsourced management of a surveillance system.
I attended the 2012 ISC West show and came away convinced that while video surveillance has evolved as a centerpiece of our industry, we can do more to secure video from the emerging threat of cyber breaches. Today digital and physical theft is converging. Countermeasures involve video surveillance integrated with security applications, and the opportunity to protect video and data should not be overlooked by integrators and left solely to overburdened IT departments.
Internet Protocol (IP) networking “expertise” and cloud computing knowledge are areas that propel video surveillance and integrated security solutions to the next level. Moving forward, protecting information — and video images — will favor cloud deployments, as cyber security upgrades are automatic and failover and redundancy are best practices.
At ISC West I had the privilege to serve for the first time as a judge for SIA’s New Product Showcase Awards. What a fascinating experience! Not only was I able to watch each company in my judging category present their working products and describe them in detail, I also was able to learn from the other judges — consultants, architects, systems integrators — about what they considered to be the key elements of each product, and what would make them choose one over another.