IP Video Will Be Resilient to the Recession

In tough economic times, security is the last thing to be cut. IP Video Market Info's forecast treats the market as a unified block, but that is not good analysis. At Sightmind [link no longer available], we sell into enterprise, mostly institutional customers. For these organizations, security is a core mission, not an optional "capital project," They have long budget cycles and far less cuts than in the consumer and retail sectors.

These Projections are Speculation

A second problem is that any kind of numerical forecast, like "66% less" growth, is simply pure speculation. No individual, no algorithm has ever shown success in predicting the future of the economy. The single most accurate statistical predictor is always "same as last year." You might guess that growth would be, "less," but even that is risky.

IPVS is Flat Out Lower For Many Applications

Another problem is your "assumption" that IPVS is more expensive than analog camera systems. For many of our clients IPVS is flat-out lower cost. The common reasons are either less cables, or no cables, because they already have network wiring. A second reason is that enterprise customer have significant integration requirements with their existing IT operations. Open-standards based systems, instead of DVR, meet these requirements directly. Full system management, such as SNMP, is only available end-to-end with IP cameras.

For most of our customers, analog systems or analog portions of systems simply don't meet their needs, and so there is no possibly way to compare "ROI" or "TCO" between apples and oranges.

For locations that have significant members of the public, such as bridges and zoos, how do calculate ROI??

How to you measure effective emergency response to an emergency? How do you calculate the cost of a fire on public lands? (Yes, we put in automatic fire detection video systems.)

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Knowing what is happening in your facility is an ounce of prevention.

Costs of Labor Analysis

Then their is your claim that guard labor will get cheaper in a poor economy. Most guards are already close to minimum wage. How much cheaper can it get? I think you are wrong about that.

However, professional labor may get more competitive. That means that the cost to put an IPVS system may be a fabulous deal in 2009.

Analytics is being used to replace people. As organizations scale back, they are going to look more seriously at saving costs that way.

We have seen a huge spike in interest in people wanting to purchase a Sightmind IVPS franchise in the last week. Slowdown or not, modern security installers are going to be one of the few businesses that do well in a bad economy.