Security over the years: IP and accessibility drives the market

The security industry has made major strides toward IP technology over the last decade, while becoming more accessible and affordable, despite ongoing economic concerns that hurt the market.

“The security business has become more accessible, both technically as well as commercially,” said Jan Vis, segment marketeer at the Netherlands-based Nedis. “At the same time the world has changed to the extent that security has become an issue in everyday life. These two trends have mainly driven the growth of the industry and the speed of technical developments.”

The economic slowdown that had begun in 2007 continues to hurt growth, especially in Europe. But this has given more opportunities to low-cost products, like those from Chinese manufacturers. Alberto Bernabe, CEO of Spain-based distributor, CCTV Center shared his experience on this.

“We work basically in Spain and Portugal but also exporting to other countries through on-site clients,” Bernabe said. “As a result, the single factor that has influenced our work most in the last few years is obviously the economic crisis.”

He added that the lack of liquidity in the market along with a freeze on investments in both public and private sector have determined the company's business strategy, which focuses more on strengthening value-added offers and using lower-cost products.

But despite the overwhelming shadow of such concerns, the market has moved ahead with IP-based products, as industry players and end users began to understand them better.

Bob Mesnik, President of Kintronics said that when IP cameras were first introduced to the market in 1990s, security dealers had difficulty understanding the network and the technology. At that point it was easier for computer dealers to understand the concepts than analog security dealers.

“Later as the technology became more successful (2005 through 2010), some of the larger analog security dealers began hiring people who were knowledgeable about IP technology,” Mesnik said. “The result was that the analog security dealers became more successful.”

Such a shift in technology had allowed more players to enter the industry and more innovative integrated solutions to appear on the market. As bandwidth rates also improved over the years, options such as remote monitoring and management also became popular. This has further given rise to advancements in the software used for security.

Reza Eissari, Technical Manager at the Iran-based PFN Technology stressed this, adding that the benefits of software have become a major reason for IP adoption.

“The video management software and video analytics progress on network environment is very fast, so for high-end projects the clients prefer use to IP video solution,”Eissari said.

Overall, the general feeling among the distributors seems to be that the added advantages of software, combined with lower costs of installing and maintaining security systems have helped the market over the recent years. Of course, end users have become more aware of their security needs as well, but this has only been a catalyst for more innovation in the industry.

**Special Announcement of a&s International's 200th Issue**

a&s International's 200th issue is coming up next month, demonstrating how the magazine has been recognized by the global security market for the last 16 years. To celebrate the occasion, the a&s editorial team has planned a series of featured articles to recap the most significant security events, technologies, and industry changes from 2007 to 2015. Hope you won't miss it!