You may notice that this issue of SDM looks a little different. Beginning with this February 2021 issue, we will be employing a new digital platform that is much more reader- and technology-friendly.

The video surveillance market is strong and will continue to grow. It is less a lumbering giant, though, and more an agile athlete, able to pivot and adapt — it just happens to be the largest one on the security court.

The overwhelming consensus among security professionals interviewed for this first in SDM’s 2018 series of State of the Market articles, is that the video surveillance market remains strong and will continue to grow.

It was the story of 2016: growth — sometimes stellar, sometimes slight, but mostly steady.

Driven by value-added services, more savvy end users and thinking beyond security, the video market continues its steady climb to new heights.

In January of each year, the President of the United States delivers the annual State of the Union address, without fail declaring the union to be strong. In security, the same can be said for the state of the video surveillance industry in recent years. Strong growth has become a hallmark of this segment for the last several years, and there’s no reason to think that won’t continue to be the case.

In 1929, Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy proposed the theory that the modern world was “shrinking” due to ever-increasing connectedness of human beings. He believed that any two individuals could be connected through at most five acquaintances, which is the original version of six degrees of separation.