Best in Class
Education has long been an early adopter of security, with good growth expected in the U.S. “Education is sadly seeing more uptake because of violence, bullying and vandalism,” said Steve Gorski, GM of the Americas, Mobotix. “If you think about schools, they have good network infrastructure, which lends itself to supporting network cameras.”
Higher education is seeing a change from the traditional security channel. Instead of going through installers, some end users are deploying network video surveillance themselves. A US university had its own IT security team install 500 cameras, heightening vigilance to crime or deliberate violence, such as shootings. “The university used video surveillance very effectively to deter and solve incidents on campus,” said Wendi Burke, Manager of Global Marketing Communications, IQinVision
A college deployed a solution combining a strobe, sensor and camera at its observatory, after the theft of a $2 million telescope. “The institution didn't secure the telescope because they thought it was too big to take,” said Rollie Trayte, President and COO of FutureSentry.
Cashing In
Gaming projects slowed during the recession, but are seeing renewed movement. “Gaming is big for us,” said Scott Paul, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Pelco (a Schneider Electric company). “We have a number of installations and reference sites around Las Vegas, including the Bellagio, the Mirage and McCarran Airport.” 
HDcctv enables HD resolution over coaxial cables, which is suited for casinos betting on upgrades. This utilizes legacy wiring while covering key areas such as entrances or dealer tables with better detail. “The big benefit is that casinos don't need to change cabling over existing RG 59, and you don't need to rip apart the casino,” said Mark Wilson, VP of Marketing for Infinova.
“If you just change the cameras, that expense can come out of the maintenance budget.”
Retail
Retail has stabilized, as consumer spending increases.
“Retail is growing for wholesale chains with many stores and a central video system,” said Lars Gudbrandsson, Head of Product Management for Milestone Systems. “The U.S. is good at incorporating large installations and taking advantage of IP surveillance.”
Video surveillance can provide real ROI to retailers. “Wal-Mart saved millions of dollars on litigation from fraudulent slip-and-fall claims by being able to display detailed video of people deliberately pouring water or pretending to fall,” said Bengt Christensson, Senior Marketing Director for Ambarella.
Retrofit
A strong retrofit market in the Americas kept intrusion from declining too much as new construction slowed, according to IMS Research. More interactive systems are seeing uptake, such as video verification.
Cloud applications are particularly appealing, with several rollouts underway in the U.S. “The cloud is seeing movement for video verification,” said Jon Hughes, Product Marketing Manager for Video Surveillance, Interlogix (a UTC Fire & Security company). “We have third-party development partners.”
Slow economic conditions hastened adoption of easy-to-administer access control solutions such as software as a service (SaaS). “Greater emphasis has been placed on streamlining and reducing operational costs for security operations covering broad geographic deployments,” said IMS Research in an April report. “However, uptake will be modest until mainstream users identify the same benefits as niche users. One barrier limiting mass adoption is end-user reluctance to store security data on a third-party server rather than on-site.”
Migrating to IP
IP video has matured, with breakthroughs in resolution, compression and storage. While the technology is essentially unchanged from prerecession specifications, buyers now are actually able to pick up the tab.
“IP uptake is accelerating,” Gorski said. “We have had tremendous growth in the U.S., which is up 50 percent.” More cameras and DVRs are opening up to IP. “VARs from the IT world are now in security,” said Joe Cuellar, Sales for DNF Security.
One of the biggest draws of IP video is higherresolution imaging, with 2.1-megapixel resolution equaling that of six D1 cameras. All those extra pixels require a significant amount of storage, which is becoming more affordable. “The increases in the number of video channels per installation and the resolution of the cameras are some of the primary reasons for the growth of data in video surveillance applications,” wrote Frost & Sullivan in its 2010 “North American Physical Security Network Storage Market” report. “As end users weigh the benefits of expenditures for installation and implementation of updated and advanced technology against existing infrastructure, recovery in this sector is expected to begin in 2010.”
The value of network storage is also driving adoption in the U.S. “Falling prices and greater levels of innovation among the IP-based physical security systems are helping the shift to more IP-centric systems requiring networkbased storage,” Frost & Sullivan said. “Integrated security management offers huge potential for network storage systems in physical security. Security systems can be incorporated into enterprise databases to expedite business processes.”
Strategic partnerships are the way forward, as seen in Cisco Systems joining forces with Pelco for its network camera business. Pelco's acquisition by Schneider Electric furthered strengthened Cisco's ties, as it had worked extensively with Schneider on building projects. “What we see in the future of that relationship is much more than physical security; with building automation and access control, it's packaging all those things together,” Collen said. “I think the security market's a good one to be in, as it seems quite robust.”