Axis Co-founder Martin Gren opined on the Canon acquisition:
"The first time I met, I never thought we'd accept the offer. What we bring to the table is the long-term view. The industry is changing; we're in an era of consolidation. Canon can provide a lot of benefits to access. They are so much bigger and are solely focused on cameras. They focus on high-quality components like lenses and image sensors, and they have a huge patent portfolio.
Canon understands the value in Axis. Canon understands this and they will let us act as an independent company as we do today." [emphasis added]
Though Canon is 'solely focused on cameras', Canon also owns VMS manufacturer, Milestone Systems.
We're in an era of consolidation where VMSes are bundled with cameras.