Business Intelligence Market Tiny

The November 2009 print edition of Security Systems News features an interview with IMS Research on the size and growth potential of the business intelligent segment of the video analytics market.

IMS estimates business intelligence to be only 3% of the market for video analytics in 2008. That's a very small percentage of a very small market (video analytics are unlikely to generate more than a few hundred million in annual revenue, regardless of how it is categorized).

In the interview, IMS projects that business intelligent will grow to 7.1% of the video analytics market by 2013 and could be video analytics 'killer application.' IMS alludes to the lower impact of false alerts on business intelligence compared to security as a benefit/driver in business intelligence's favor.

Key applications of business intelligence cited are (1) people counting and (2) traffic pattern analysis.

The practical challenges for adopting these applications include:

• Limited product availability from mainstream vendors. Using business intelligence often requires adding a new product that may not be integrated into the existing system.
• Sophisticated traffic pattern analysis tends to come from non-security providers, requiring a complete new system to be bought (see BVI [link no longer available], Scopix, LightHaus Logix, VideoMining to name a few of the dozen small specialists in this segment).
• New cameras with special positioning are generally required. Existing surveillance cameras generally cannot be used for both surveillance monitoring and business intelligence analysis. This too increases the cost.