Do You Believe An Ecosystem, Like The One Axis Created, Is Good Or Bad For IP Video Surveillance?

There's no doubt that Axis has been the central force in creating an ecosystem of partnerships within the IP video surveillance industry.

The state of that ecosystem is in decline, or at least, under attack. As we noted in a recent discussion:

"Their partner ecosystem is falling apart anyway, right? Each time a major VMS gets bought out by a conglomerate and every time the Chinese manufacturers make inroads and Avigilon expands, that's less and less of the world for an open partner ecosystem."

One member, in response, posed us the question of this discussion:

Do you believe an ecosystem, like the one Axis created, is good or bad for IP video surveillance?

On one level, the easy answer is yes but if it is so good, then why are so many moving successfully away from it? And what will become of it?

I believe it has a lot to do with tighter integration of the product. Avigilon equipment should "just work" with Avigilon VMS. The same applies to others such as Bosch, Pelco, etc. With Avigilon adding the cameras into the VMS is quick and easy and all camera features (analytics) are fully supported. The cameras automatically acquire the appropriate firmware updates. This is not an endorsement of Avigilon, just my experience with limited testing of it.

On the flip side a third party VMS with Axis equipment may or may not work. Do the cameras have the right firmware? Does the VMS driver list show the model of camera being utilized? Sometimes the cameras are not supported for a while during the time it takes the VMS to catch up. With Axis, this is generally caught up fairly quickly by the VMS developer, but with some others it can be months of limping along with ONVIF. All of this requires time and time is the bottleneck in many cases.

I do not know, nor could I guess, what would happen to the open ecosystem. I imagine it will stay around for those of us that choose to make use of it.