The security industry continues to grow, and business reactions in the supplier and middleman sectors of the industry are naturally positive. But there is sometimes a bittersweet character to its underlying demand — as in the case of Virginia Tech.

As strong as the secondary and college vertical market has been during the past two years, its pace will now accelerate even more. And security users are continuing to experience a rising level of management stature as events and tragedies, like the massacre at VT, raise organizational concerns for security policies to strategic levels.

The user’s ability to deliver information to any portable receiver is now a real advance in helping people understand the onset of suddenly perilous circumstances. It is especially easy to see how cell phones have become vital technologies in the protection of young people. Not only in receiving danger warning text messages, but increasingly in the personal monitoring of real-time or quick-retrieval video “events” as well.

Recording Tops Users’ Wish List

In a recent look into the “wish list” of users, the four issues that burn brightest in today’s user demand pattern concern recording, storage, convergence and analytics. Compared to our previous look into user demand profiles, this list is not materially different from what users have previously told us. At the top of the ratings list is recording (large disk drives). In addition to the constantly rising number of cameras now being installed across the world, camera quality is also rising.

In a somewhat exceptional example of this trend, Freeman Labs recently assessed the performance quality of a very high megapixel HD camera that eschews compression. Its purpose is to deliver the highest possible image quality when ultra-resolution, full unedited activity is required in such places as courts, military bases and highly secure power utilities. Imagine the recording requirements of this type of system as more and more users become interested in it.

Digital recording is no longer a DVR or NVR. A large IT client is developing an ingenious approach to centralized off-site video storage that will present unquestionable appeal to Fortune 1,000 companies in just another manifestation of what convergence is starting to mean for the “security network” marketplace.

Intelligent Video Is Still Evolving

Right up there with the three user wishes mentioned above is intelligent software. Whereas the other three wishes on the list are rapidly evolving and commercializing, the intelligent video (IV) market is still sorting through how best to satisfy users without constantly becoming immersed in a customized business model.

The idea is very powerful and becoming more so. Will it become simpler and less experimental in order to deliver that promise? Will suppliers control their creative urges to forego the wide-ranging functionalities they tend to write into their software? Will chipsets in good, better and best capabilities take over? The IV market is the one area with the still-unsettled growth rate. It is just waiting for an answer that’s still in hiding — maybe right in front of our eyes.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our FREE digital newsletters!

Related Content