Milestone Systems

Milestone Systems, the open platform company in IP video management software (VMS), held its largest ever annual UK & Ireland (UKI) Milestone Partner Open Platform Event (MPOP UK) on 3-4 July this year at the Holiday Inn, Stratford upon Avon.

General Manager UK & Ireland, Glenn Fletcher and his team hosted more than 100 of its key integration and distribution partners for the two-day conference which outlined Milestone’s continued leadership in the VMS market in the UK & Ireland.

Glenn underlined why Milestone continues to attract and hold onto the best distributor and integration partners in the region: “As well as Milestone’s clear product roadmap, partners value our strong and stable UKI team. We put a strong emphasis on building long-term partnerships. This approach continues to pay dividends in a market which is still seeing strong demand but also increased competition.”

Recent developments in the UKI channel for Milestone included Cardiff-based distributor Oprema gaining distribution rights, as well as placing a larger emphasis in Ireland working with Milestone’s key distributors there: GVD and Anixter.

One of the highlights of the event was the MPOP UK Awards. Milestone Partner award winners this year were as follows:

Milestone Scotland Partner of the Year: King Communications

Milestone Northern UK Partner of the Year: NW Systems Group

Milestone Central UK Partner of the Year: AJAR-tec

Milestone Ireland Partner of the Year: Jade Management Solutions

Milestone Southern UK Partner of the Year: Kent CCTV & Data

Milestone UK & Ireland Distribution Partner of the Year: Anixter

Milestone Solution Partner of the Year: Pivot 3

Milestone Training Partner of the Year: GVD

Glenn Fletcher commented after the prize giving: “All are true long-term partners for us in the region. Many have been consistently selling and specifying Milestone for many years. But it is about more than just the sales volumes they generate. We know these partners are helping us grow the IP video market, often in different ways.”

The highlight of the second day was a live video conference with Christian Bohn, VP Marketing and Alliances at Milestone HQ, who unveiled Milestone’s product roadmap for the next year including plans for 2013 versions of most Milestone VMS offerings as well as for the XProtect? Smart Client interface.

Christian outlined the value of Milestone’s latest architectural innovation called Milestone Interconnect. It allows distributed environments to use any level Milestone VMS locally and network these multiple sites to a centralised location that has Milestone XProtect Corporate. Key early adopter markets for Milestone Interconnect are likely to be the retail and transportation sectors.

Frank Crouwel, managing director, NW Systems, commented on the event: “This year’s MPOP UK was the best so far. There were more delegates, more eco-system partners, more integrators and more interesting presentations. The mix of useful information combined with the opportunity to mix socially in the evening made MPOP UK better than ever this yea