Industry News Roundup May 2014

Monitoring over 100 surveillance sites, the IPVM Spider picks up 300+ pieces of news each month.

Here are 18 of the most noteworthy news items, including from Milestone, Mobotix, Axis, Avigilon, Dropcam, Tyco and more:

VMS Items

• Milestone encoder licensing change / price drop [link no longer available] - Now it's 1 license per IP address, even if there are 4 or 16 analog cameras connected to the encoder, significantly dropping prices for migrating analog cameras.
• Intransa / Viakoo is back, now as a video network monitoring solution, charging $10 per user/month/site [link no longer available].
• Milestone has improved their access control software / integration [link no longer available]
• Genetec has a case study, using an infographic - it's certainly different and clearly shows low level tech details but will it be more effective convincing prospects?
• A major new VMS release from QNAP - Version 5.0 claims "intelligent desktop with multi-window design, simplified user interface, and newly added features including a floating tool bar, playback shuttle bar, and video thumbnails"
• Another VMS release from Network Optix / HD Witness [link no longer available] - Version 2.2's lead feature is "universal fisheye dewarping"
• Luxriot is now supporting ONVIF Profile S [link no longer available]
• OnSSI is now doing recertification training online [link no longer available].

Camera Items

• Mobotix newest financials are out - and growth is only 4%, not good but not surprising considering the CEO was booted and their Americas GM quit.
• Raytec has a new hybrid white light / IR illuminator - that's different and could be useful if you want to switch back and forth between white and IR illumination but quite niche.
• Axis now has an outdoor version of a fisheye panoramic camera - minor.
• Do you want to be Director of Sales at Basler [link no longer available]? They've been quite quiet on the surveillance camera side but here's an opportunity for a sales person who wants to move up.

General News Items

• People hate the cable guy even more than the security guy, says SSN.
• American Dynamics is boasting how a retailer used AD products, end to end, installed by Tyco Integrated Services. This is the Tyco vertical integration dream scenario.
• Avigilon announced video analytics but weirdly it was just the existing Rialto series they acquired from VideoIQ.
• State of the Smart Home [link no longer available] - a survey report released by iControl
• A truly terrible 'educational' article from NICE where they recommend cash-strapped schools install PSIM.
• Dropcam's enabling a neighborhood wide VSaaS solution, something we think is an ideal alternative to expensive city wide systems (see: Idea: Virtual Neighborhood Watches)
• Dropcam hired a former Apple and Microsoft manager to be their VP for Hardware and Strategy