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A month of surveillance

The surveillance industry always has something happening, either in the technology arena where the latest inventions are being brought to market, or on the business side where the deals are made that impact the shape of the industry.

We have already seen one such activity this year with the announcement that Canon is buying Axis, which is probably the biggest news we’ve heard recently – perhaps ever in the surveillance market. The deal puts Canon right at the centre of IP surveillance considering it also bought Milestone a while back. Just how Canon leverages its role in the industry without breaking what Axis and Milestone have built individually will be the challenge it faces going forward.

Avigilon has also been in the news, buying all sorts of analytics patents or by buying a company like Video IQ. It now has a nice collection of patents that will make it an analytics player to deal with. It has also inherited ObjectVideo’s lawsuit revenue (or perhaps expenses), which apparently brought in a few million in ObjectVideo’s last financials. Either way it’s on a good wicket.

On the technical front, there have been no awesome, crowd-stopping innovations this year (although we have only just started the year), but there are still significant happenings on this front, specifically in terms of image quality and onboard processing. The big drive, from what we see in the market, however, is the requirement to make use of surveillance data for non-security functions.

Bringing video data into the business intelligence fold is going to have a significant impact in future, turning security into a value-add to other business segments – which will be a nice alternative to being the unpopular, expensive child.

In this year’s CCTV Handbook, which is bundled with the April issue, you will find a few mentions of this trend, along with a bunch of other trends, ideas and opinions, and a section of case studies from a variety of industries. We once again include our Camera Selection Guide, as well as our DVR/NVR Round-Up to provide a concise listing of the latest products available. We also end the handbook with a listing of companies active in the surveillance arena.

As some of the lucky ones head out to their April holidays, we hope you enjoy both the slightly smaller April issue as well as the 120 pages of the CCTV Handbook. And as always, please let us have your comments and criticisms at andrew@technews.co.za.

Andrew Seldon

Editor

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