Asia Update: Keda bringing vertical solutions to global security theater

There is no better “test bed” than China. With its land mass, population and security focus and budget, the country is a perfect breeding ground for security solution developers and providers, especially with large-scale networked systems. Here is one success story in the making.

Headquartered in Suzhou, China as a subsidiary of Keda Communications, Keda Technology has come a long way since its establishment in 1995 as a telecommunication and video conferencing system specialist and 2005 IPO in Singapore. With its 2012 revenue exceeding US$160 million and work force of 3,000+, the company is chomping at the bit to take its fine-tuned vertical solutions abroad, for government and MNC users that are looking for tried-and-tested quality HD surveillance video to tackle their security and management headaches.

Thanks to its decade-long cultivation and experience between 1995 and 2004, Keda had honed its network communication capability through its countless video conferencing projects at government agencies and business entities across the country. According to John Xue, Executive Director for Keda Technology, it was also during that period that the company realized the significance of easy-to-use software interfaces and seamless technical support. “Owing to our earlier partnership with Philips, we have exceled at hardware manufacturing, video imaging processing, and frame/bit rate control and management. But it was through these domestic but nationwide projects that we learned to be especially mindful of the unique implementation and day-to-day requirements of system integrators and government/enterprise end users.”

After the “Safe City” initiative swept across and started to take root in China in 2007/2008, Keda got to demonstrate how its intelligent, interconnected IP cameras, NVRs and management platforms could help end users better react to constantly evolving site conditions at many more multisite projects. “We were fortunate to be given the many opportunities to evolve as well, to grow to be application-specific in how analytics and automated alerts can be deployed in various environments,” Xue shared. To date, 14 to 16 percent of Keda's annual turnover is earmarked for R&D endeavors.

Open Arms
To continue to drive innovation and scale new heights, Keda is eyeing the cloud and global market. “We have an open-door, open-arms policy. With cloud-based applications growing exponentially, we want to collaborate with as many technology partners as possible because we can't do it all alone. We will also continue to work on optimizing image processing and bandwidth allocation management so that better and sooner preventive and preemptive measures can be taken.”

Keda is now active throughout Asia (from Japan and Korea all the way to Southeast Asia), the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa, and continues to look for capable and compatible distribution partners. “The security market is highly dynamic yet with a much longer selling cycle, so there is a lot more unpredictability. We are taking the time to groom our partners, grow our development and distribution networks, and hone our branding and sales management efforts,” Xue expressed.

Keda is ready and open for business — are you?