ONVIF , the global standardization initiative for IP-based physical security products, continues to experience strong interest from security companies worldwide. In only six months, the number of members has grown from 100 to 180. At the same time, there is a rapid increase of ONVIF conformant products available on the market accounting for more than 100.
"ONVIF has made impressive progress," said Simon Harris, Senior Research Director at IMS Research. "In less than two years, the organization has attracted companies that account for 72 percent of the global network video surveillance market. Several of these have already released ONVIF conformant products or software, so it is becoming quite clear that ONVIF will impact the global security industry as a whole."
The market support for ONVIF was evident when multitude of companies promoted their ONVIF membership and conformant products.
"We connected more than 20 products from different companies to a network, and the cameras could immediately exchange information and video data with the various video management software. This would have been impossible if the products didn’t have the same network interface. Overall, the ONVIF interface enables integrators to focus on solving the customers’ surveillance needs, instead of making the products they choose compatible with each other," said Pete Lockhart, VP Emerging Technologies at Anixter.
Another sign of ONVIF’s impact on the security industry is the organization’s recent decision to include physical access control systems in its standardization work. "The scope extension is a direct result of the effectiveness that ONVIF has demonstrated to achieve a global open standard for network video products," said Jonas Andersson, Axis Communications and Chairman of ONVIF’s steering committee. "We were approached by several members and system integrators who would like to see a similar development for access control products. And with ONVIF’s strong belief in open standards and interoperability, it was a natural step for us to extend the scope."