ASIS 2013: Goldfine’s Day 3 Wrap-up Report

The annual ASIS show in Chicago last week was reasonably well attended and seems to be looked upon as a success by its organizers and most of the participants. From my perspective, it was a good convention and by most accounts produced high quality if not high quantity leads. What follows is an overview of my breakneck three days in the Windy City. I have broken out each of the three ASIS show days into separate blog posts (read about Day 1 here and Day 2 here). There are also some other related and linked items as you will see. Here is my ASIS 2013 experience, Day 3:

Hurray! Good news for my weary back, feet and legs, the end was near as the final Day 3 got underway. All the early action took place at the Milestone booth, where I met with some of the VMS platform (and more recently NVR hardware provider) leader’s ecosystem partners. It’s also always a delight to meet up with Milestone Corporate PR Manager Courtney Dillon Pedersen. First up was LenovoEMC2, where Global Products Manager Bill Hansen showed me LenovoEMC’s NVRs, the first in the industry to feature Milestone’s Arcus VMS software. Lars Nordenlund Friis, Milestone vice president, incubation and ventures, then told me more about Arcus, an embedded video surveillance platform for low-complexity, affordable security installations that runs on Linux, Mac OSX and Windows operating systems. He also showed me Milestone’s new line of sleekly designed NVRs set to begin shipping before year end. Finally, Ian Johnston, president and CEO of Innovative Security Designs (ISD), then briefed me on the firm’s netSeries miniBall camera, an edge-based device embedded with the Arcus VMS.

Had another outstanding and though-provoking conversation with Pivot3 CMO Olivier Thierry about the inevitable and accelerating march of the physical security industry into the IT/networked world. He expects major changes ahead for suppliers and integrators, who he urges to transform themselves into skilled IT-knowledgeable professionals. To that end, Thierry and Pivot3 are presenting an important educational series titled, “Storing and Protecting Video Surveillance Data.” The first part of the four-part series appears in SSI’s September issue. Look for Part 2 in December. We also talked about Pivot3’s involvement in securing the State of Liberty as part of Total Recall’s project.

I next zipped over to Tyco Security Products to hear the latest from Steve Carney, director of product management. We discussed at length how the company is integrating the recent acquisition of Exacq Technologies into its portfolio. He says they are trying to leave that business as it was — Exacq intact if you will — allowing the event-driven video surveillance solutions provider to continue being innovative with the same location and people as before. Carney talked about how the transition will be transparent to the integrators who have come to love Exacq’s simplicity and user friendly approach. Carney also covered the latest version of VideoEdge and victor, which complements the Exacq offering as American Dynamics’ VMS solution aimed at those in an active monitoring environment. Carney said victor now offers more features including better analytics, better integration with access control and more powerful data mining capabilities.

Pressing on, I arrived at the Brivo booth to hold court about all things managed access control and beyond with PR specialist and longtime colleague Bruce Doneff along with Senior Marketing Manager JuliAnn Tuleya. We talked about how the company’s new brand name, OnAir, for the former Brivo ACS WebService cloud-based access control management solution. It includes an updated interface that offers a more visually rich and responsive experience for customers. We also discussed how Brivo’s solutions have expanded into video surveillance and allow dealers/integrators to easily add cameras. The meeting wrapped up with a very interesting debate about how big the move toward Big Data may become in the security industry and Doneff shared recent research Brivo has done on the topic.

Then grabbed some chow with Shannon Murphy, vice president of sales and marketing for the Electronic Security Association (ESA). The conversation included many of the exciting plans the association has in store for its members in 2014. At the top of the list is the upcoming ESA Leadership Summit January in Orlando, where the emphasis will be on high-level business training and how to take advantage of the many opportunities available to today’s installing security contracting companies. As well, there are several impressive speakers lined up for the event. I look forward to another collaborative year between SSI and ESA.

One of the most colorful meetings I enjoyed at ASIS took place at Matrix Systems’ booth, where I was entertained by Product Management Specialist Mark Heintzman. He spoke about how the access control and identity management solutions provider has been ramping up operations including hiring Holly Tsourides as CEO and opening a sales and marketing office outside Boston. The firm specializes in airports, health care and industrial applications, environments that take advantage of Matrix’s three levels of system redundancy. The company has also expanded with recent partnerships that include Mercury Security access panel and Next Level Security Systems compatibility. That was all well and good but what was really fun was finding out about Heintzman’s past life as a former skateboarding pro that rivaled the fame of Tony Hawk. Lots of reminiscing between he and I about the glory days of sidewalk surfing ensued.

One more stop before heading to O’Hare to head home, and saved one of the best for last — Verint Systems and a favorite colleague of mine, Global Communications Director Courtney Mamuscia. She scarcely had time to catch her breath as there was so much to update me on regarding the company’s most recent enterprise and security intelligence developments. They included several enhancements to the Nextiva portfolio, such as crowdsourcing intelligence, advanced surveillance analytics, expanded integrations, advanced bandwidth management for remote video access and additional IP cameras. Mamuscia informed me Verint is No. 1 in the financial market and how the business is really zeroing in on specialized vertical solutions. The company is conducting informative road shows and she is producing quarterly Webinar
s. Verint is also internally cultivating more cross-division synergies to develop new solutions for corrections facilities and safe cities initiatives. The firm also has a user forum planned for June 2014.

Some 30+ meetings later, it was finally time to call it a show … and dig out from a week’s worth of backed up work back at the office! Hey, at least next year I can drive to the show in Atlanta — just four hours down the interstate from my suburban Charlotte, N.C., abode.

Scott Goldfine

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Scott Goldfine is the marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions. He is the former editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He can be reached at [email protected].

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