Optelecom-NKF Significant Financial Decline Q4 2009

Optelecom-NKF, a specialist in video surveillance systems for traffic monitoring and critical infrastructure security, announced a 21% year over year decline in revenue for Q4 2009.

From their financial documents, the key negative driver is the steep decline in their legacy fiber optics product offering. For instance, in their Q3 quarterly statement, revenue from fiber optics dropped 35% while IP video products dropped only 14%.

Given IP networks strength in transmitting video over COTS networking infrastructure, Optelecom-NKF's traditional fiber optics business faces great challenges. Optelecom has been developing and promoting their own IP video solution called Siquora as their next generation 'platform'. See a video overview of Siquora [link no longer available].

These financial challenges are consistent with the Q4 2009 results of companies attempting similar transitions, including ADT, March Networks and Vicon.