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the
interview
For more information about
innovation within security and
market data, see Memoori's
report "The Physical Security
Business in 2012". Read more
at www.armedia.se.
"We agree. As I described ear-
lier we see the industry evolving
through three distinct phases:
video technology, video integration
and the next phase, video enabling.
Today, we are at the start of the
enabling phase. You see access
control, license plate recognition
and, analytics, mobile technology ,
laser, RFID, and many other types
of technology all working together
seamlessly through the Milestone
open platform.
Manufacturers and end-
users have engaged with the open
platform and are realising the
benefits. They are beginning to
ask what else we can use video for,
and how this might help optimise
our businesses. This phase is really
about the realisation of Milestone's
vision, driving the convergence of
video surveillance and IP based
business systems."
How important is the openness?
"The open platform is the enabler
for many of these changes. The
effect has been to redefine the in-
dustry's expectations of how we use
surveillance video. The enabling
phase is the proof-point. We are
seeing customers look beyond us-
ing surveillance video for security
and protecting assets and seeing
how it can help them to optimise
their operations."
As a platform for sensing and
analysing data, the video camera
has enormous potential. How
will it fit into the "Internet of
Things" (IoT)?
"What I think we are seeing here
is that the video camera itself is
becoming a DVR. It will have, or
in some cases already has, analytics
capabilities and recording on the
edge capabilities. As the price of
RAM cards decrease over time, the
camera will take on many more
functions.
This is where Milestone Arcus
as an embedded VMS platform
comes into play, and this is where
you will see the overarching
Milestone vision becoming even
stronger. As cameras get more and
more powerful, they will accelerate
the convergence between the edge
components and IP based business
systems." n
that operates in parallel with our
day to day business to drive in-
novation. This team is focused on
creating new game changing prod-
ucts and bringing them to market.
Milestone Arcus is our first product
from this new business unit. The
product is an embedded VMS plat-
form for large hardware companies.
It was hot news at ISC West and
we have more than 50 companies
interested in the platform."
Any other plans?
"You will also see innovation
through our ecosystem which is a
force multiplier because we share
our partners' technical and market
research. In the ecosystem, innova-
tion takes place as a collaborative
effort between our own engineering
team and our technical partners.
Today, we have over 200 software
engineers developing solutions with
Milestone open platform technology
in addition to our own team. We
simply have more engineers develop-
ing with Milestone technology and
this drives innovation faster."
Is the security industry's resist-
ance to change creating opportu-
nities for start-up businesses?
"At Milestone we see the security
industry as focused on reliabil-
ity rather than resisting change.
New innovations have to prove
themselves first, and show that they
work reliably. When you're dealing
with evidence, it is just not accept-
able to find out that the video you
need is not there, or unclear. You
might call this resistance, but it's a
fact of our industry."
The industry is seeing a shift in
security services; moving from
just a cost centre for businesses
to actually driving operational
savings and delivering real ROI.
How will this impact on the
industry and how far can this
trend go?
Where will the major innovations
in video surveillance come from
in the next five years?
"In the next five years, some of
the major innovations will come
in the way surveillance video is
used by companies to optimise
their business. When you look at
what is happening in our industry
from a higher level, you see that it
has evolved through three phases.
Today, we are entering the third,
or video enabling phase and this is
where some of the most interest-
ing innovations will occur. As the
adoption of Cloud technology
and managed video as a service
(MVaaS) increases in security solu-
tions, the trend of video being used
to enable business applications will
accelerate."
What have the three phases
meant?
"Phase one was about video
technology, the convergence of IP
and analogue to make innovation
possible. Phase two followed with
video integration. This phase was
about making the solutions easy
to use and more intelligent with
things like video analytics. The
Milestone open platform is a major
driver for this phase because it
makes it possible to use surveillance
video together with other security
systems, such as access control,
analytics and perimeter devices.
Phase three is where we will
really see innovations blossom; we
call this phase "video enabling."
Here, we will see surveillance video
used to give better customer service
and improve business processes in
many industry sectors. This phase
will change the way the world
thinks about using surveillance
video."
How does Milestone intend to
innovate the market in 2013?
"We have created a separate busi-
ness unit, Incubation & Ventures
LarsThinggaard,CEOofMilestone:
"The view on security cameras will change"
The security industry in general and the camera seg-
ment in particular are now entering a time of big
scale innovations that will change the view on se-
curity cameras and their use. This, according to Lars
Thinggaard, CeO of the VMS company Milestone,
who here answers some questions on innovation and
video surveillance.
According to Lars Thinggaard, CEO of
Milestone, some of the big innovations
and changes in the industry will change
the way companies use security cameras to
optimize their business.