Here is some food for thought... Has Mercury Hardware turned the Access Control industry into the Burglar Alarm, door knocking, telemarketing, black eye of the late 90's early 2000's. In my opinion they have. I grew up in the burglar alarm industry learning from some of the best. You know, back when everything, and I mean everything, had to be hardwired. The only wireless was a portable panic button. Then towards the end of the 90's companies made a fortune selling alarm contracts and admittedly I was one of them who made some good money as well. Difference being I cared deeply about the security of my customers and the QUALITY OF INSTALL. Well some time has passed since then and now Mercury has made the access control industry an open standard. In a general statement that is wonderful. If a customer is not happy with a software platform they have the option to switch to one they like that better serves their needs. Of course this is usually because their security company cant service their system properly or they don't keep in touch with their customer. The problem is, yes it may seem like a better software, you know really flashy and current, but does it do what the customer wants and most importantly does the Integrator installing the new software know what they are doing. Right there is my problem with this. Too often these days every Tom Dick and Harry thinks they can start a new security company and make a lot of money. Sure that is possible but what about when the system doesn't work or the customer has some really specific needs or even dare I say what about the security of these customers. I would venture to say that over 40% of "So Called Integrator's" out there have no clue how to solve these typically complex problems or even care about the security of their customers. To most of these companies, "I will call TRUNK SLAMMERS", they are all about the all mighty dollar.
The IP camera industry is just the same with ONVIF. IP cameras have become a commodity these past few years and it is really hard to compete with a camera that is normally just $125 and now this week, and of course this is every week, on sale for $75. Now I am not trying to complain here but often times the customer sees the vast difference in price for the lesser products, full of bullet holes I might add, even though they truly know that if they pay a little more in the long run they will save money not having to replace faulty equipment and knowing what they purchased was what they needed and it was installed correctly.
Anyways this is just a thought about the current state of the security industry. Please forgive any typos or grammar errors. I know this will spark much debate from vendors and integrators. My intention here is to bring about conversation of the current state of the security industry.