Hikvision Deletes Genetec Support

This should be interesting to watch. I love watching this kind of thing play out. Always so much to learn. 

On team Hikvision you have a massive market share with millions of cameras and dvrs. Most of the cameras I see day-to-day are Hikvision. Just last week I met a guy who hired me on the side to come help him out with his Hikvision NVR (the new one with the new UI) he couldn't get the cameras from the old recorder to work on the new recorder. My point is, this guy loved his Hikvision NVR. I know a lot of consumers who do, they're not paying attention to what Genetec is doing or what reports come out on IPVM. Not saying this is right or wrong it's just how it is. I've found that most consumers do not care about the level of security in their IoT products. As soon as they see the price tag of a higher quality product they often are willing to take the risk. 

On team Genetec you have very capable video management software deployed inside a higher end market that is smaller than Hikvisions. People who use Genetec care about the security of their equipment and can afford more expensive cameras. Until the Chinese government isn't involved in Hikvision these clients will almost always side with Genetec. 

Hikvision wanted to get into this high-end market, Genetec is making this very difficult. If other VMS's decided to play nice with Hikvision and promote their product than Hikvision will win this in the long run.

If other VMS follow suit and start shutting out Hikvision than Hikvision is bound to lose in the US market regardless of what consumers think. Selling 4 camera systems isn't going to cut it in the long run or make the cost of operating in the US market worth it. 

What should they do? In a perfect world, we would see them work together. We would see the hostility between the US and China go away and we could all work together to make a safer more secure world. The reality is that won't happen for a long time if ever. In the business world, it's time for them to duke it out. 

Disclosure - I work for Genetec

Well said John - The Hikvision apologists continue to either not notice or not care what the Chinese Govt. does in the way of damage to the United States

I'm sure that many of them were among the 143 million Americans that had their  personal information stolen in China's hack of  Equifax, but as long as they're winning SMB camera jobs, they rationalize it's OK to support a Communist state run enterprise 

It is very interesting from the integrator side to see a reactive move (and such a delayed one at that). Genetec announced the change in support for HIKVision (and other notably insecure devices) in an effort to increase the security of their systems and reduce the liability that a system suffered from cyberattack liabilities. The additional cost was not a purely punitive action, it was to cover the liability that Genetec took (both in R&D, support time, etc) in having systems that included HIKVision. On the flip side, HIK taking off support for Genetec is based on nothing more than a "if you don't like me, well then I don't like you!" mentality- with no technological reasoning to support such a move. 

On the lower end, John and Sean are both right- your average every day NVR user will probably not notice or care about such a move. However, at the higher end this is definitely not something that will go over well long term. If a Fortune 500 company or Government client feels that they have to chose between the two, and one company can support their additional fee/lack of support with cybersecurity issues while the other company can only justify it with "we don't like them" then I would be hard pressed to see them both being viewed equally in the mind of the end-user. This seems like an overly emotional play that belies the traditional long term thinking of the Chinese government 

Hik has an bottomless bank account and an endless amount of time, Genetec does not.  The only thing that will stop Hik is the US Govt.

"Ask Hikvision For Special Support?

Sources indicate that end users and integrators wanting to use Hikvision cameras with Genetec may be able to request special firmware from Hikvision that includes the Genetec protocol. We are not clear what terms or how readily they will approve it but that may be a possibility."

Sad, Customer will suffer eventually.

I find this an interesting conversation coming out of the US, albeit sometimes off track. Thought I would join in for what its worth.

Here in the Antipodes (NZ) Hik (as its commonly known) is gaining market share over some of the big VMS players, Milestone, Genetec, Exacq, Avigilon and even Aimetis which is relatively new to market; this includes the NVR market which incidentally is regaining traction given the cost efficiency over VMS server infrastructure, we have all the top and bottom lines here, its a saturated market with confused clients who are fundamentally price driven. Just today I visited a client (a tenant in a low rise) where 18 months ago the building installed Pelco Endura, today I find it replaced with Hik NVR's...

As an independent and solutions based designer I am generally product agnostic but to be honest sometimes a particular product outshines others for a number of reasons, including competent installation vs incompetent integrators that tarnish other products' reputation (ref aforementioned finding);

Back to Hik.. their camera and NVR range is hard to beat when it comes down to price and lets face it they are well featured when put up against others, most integrators here will present Hik as an option for that very reason as it means they can compete in a very tight market place.

I am across all the media and comments and have never recommended Hik as a solution per say, instead I present the commentary to my clients when they ask about Hik or when I find it has been included as a nominated option to my specifications that are out to tender, and let them decide. 

The reality comes down to who makes the decision - for me its must always be the client. When IT are involved they are normally risk averse and avoid Hik, when the property/procurement team are involved its normally Hik.

At this stage I am unfortunately on the fence and when Hik is chosen my first reaction is usually take a HIKE; not sure how long I can do this in the current market place, BTW I turned down an opportunity to visit Hik last year in China, appears I missed a very interesting visit, they are turning out product in mass. 

What about all the other things that are "made in china" including those rolling around the states on four wheels... with sat nav etc..

and don't forget we signed the TTPA. China not a part of this but is New Zealand's second-largest trading partner for exports and third-largest for imports, watch this space..

Hire a skip and throw hik and dahua into it

then environmentally dispose of it 

You go out and buy the standard.

Rodney, in practice, ONVIF generally requires both sides to optimize the integration especially if advanced features are needed (and with bigger customers, they tend to be required). So standard or not, you need the companies involved to do custom work.

To be clear, I still think ONVIF is a good thing, it's just not so complete that direct integrations can be ignored or deleted.