As a result of 9/11, the security industry has emerged from being a somewhat shadowy industry in which purchases were reluctantly made without a government regulation or an insurance industry mandate of monitored security and fire systems.

But now the entire IT industry and international investment houses across the world are examining the security marketplace for sources of future growth and earnings.

As security manufacturers work to educate users about new technologies to achieve rapid adoption without huge inventory buildups, there are other products and systems that benefit — and also suffer from — these newer technologies.

Differing Points of View
What manufacturers think and what integrators think can sometimes differ.

Manufacturers conduct research on the acceptance of new technologies and product ideas, and plan their new entries from that base. Integrators, on the other hand, accept what manufacturers provide in the way of new products, training, sales presentations and prices, and go face to face with users every day. In their efforts to sell new products, they sometimes receive different reactions from what manufacturers may have suggested would be the case.

That’s what the “long and short of it” is all about — a lot of attention is understandably paid to the growth aspects of the industry, but little to the “shorts.”

The Growth/Legacy Balancing Act
So here’s a picture of one slice of the industry — what integrators say is the future of certain products that are now on the market.

As per the chart, we know that analog recorders, black-and-white cameras and wedge cameras have been poor sellers. But integrators report the same is true of mobile DVRs and video monitoring. (Anything with a rating of 2.5 or less is considered to be, on balance, a poor seller.)

Among the products listed on the chart, the strongest seller is covert cameras, both currently and looking out five years. But the long and short of it is that some of the products shown are specialties with real growth ahead of them, while others are destined for disappearance, or close to it.

In the former camp are video monitoring, mobile DVRs and home security video. And due to the impact of IP systems, DVRs, NVRs and dome cameras, we can add multiplexers to analog recorders, black-and-white cameras and wedge cameras as products with dismal long-term futures.

This is how integrators view the market today. So you can bet they’re expecting their suppliers to get them ready for video monitoring programs, mobile video systems and a second generation of growth in the home security market.

For the complete version of this story, see the June issue of Security Sales & Integration magazine.

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