Milestone Launches DVRs

MIPs Expo 2014 - Milestone Husky NVR announced

ASIS 2014 - Milestone Husky DVR announced

MIPS Expo 2015 - Milestone Matrix Switcher announced

ISC 2015 - Milestone sequencer announced, Pelco announces cloud based VMS based on Microsoft Azure

ASIS 2015 - MIlestone adds DVR PCI-X cards to growing hardware portfolio

MIPS 2015 - Pelco acquires Canon/Milestone to flesh out their analog product portfolio

And we are full circle...

I can't quite understand how the expansion of Milestone's product offerings comes in conflict with the "Open platform" concept. As a long time partner of Milestone in my country in Eastern Europe I have always seen this concept as the possibility to implements various brands and types of IP devices in a single, integrated software platform. Yes, Milestone was acquired by another company and still they do support (on driver level) more than 1000 different devices. Yes, they released an embedded NVR and still you can assemble your own server and put on top Milestone's software. So I would say that the "Open platform" concept still is pretty much alive. What will or might become in the future is pure speculation at that point..

I will give you another perspective based on my experience on the market in Eastern Europe. In fact various Milestone partners here have been begging them to release an embedded server/NVR. The reasons are different, some of them being:

- Large part of the system installers/security companies do not have enough knowledge and/or experience to calculate and assemble the right IT server. Or at least it takes them considerable time and human effort to do it. Many of them are still coming from the analogue world and they expect to have similar logic in the IP area, at least regarding the embedded recording device. The IP migration is quite a task for them, and any help in the way of a ready to use out-of-the box recorder is a big plus. I have had various customers (system installers) who are afraid to do all the calculations and assembling IT servers, not to mention the installation of OS, drivers, etc.

- The Husky NVR that I saw it is just a pre-assembled PC server with Milestone pre-installed. Nothing more. It does not hold any new technology, it does not lock or limit the future customers (it can be expanded with licences). There are not any PC cards or something, no propietary hardware. It is just a third-party PC made by DELL (even the warranty comes from them). So it is not a Milestone product, but rather an IT product distributed by Milestone. The main advantage for the customer as we will try to show it is the fact that it can save a lot of time for the installer, while the end-user can have a total-solution-equipment from one provider (which on our market is a plus)

The software itself is still hardware agnostic and any integrator can assemble and support any other kind of PC server, given that he has the adequate knowledge, time and desire to do so..

Maybe Milestone is trying to fill a demand it is hearing from its users. Say a user has a large number of locations with a small numbers of cameras, many existing analog systems that are functioning just fine. They want to protect their investment without having to rip and replace these systems. They want local recording because they know the bandwidth demand isn't going to give them a quality solution otherwise. Meanwhile, they have some large locations worthy of an enterprise VMS platform. They want to leverage that and bring all cameras online with one management system. Of course, there are ways to do this without depending on the hardware offered by Milestone. Maybe Husky product is just enough for some large chain convenience store or coffee retailer to pick Milestone instead of another and that opens their product up to a market they previously were not reaching. I wonder, will this offering solve the problem AND be cheap enough for that market to buy it?

Milestone may have felt they needed to change their mantra because there has been a major market shift. I few years ago the integrators adopting IP solutions were more IT centric, or at least comfortable with IT products and networking, and the economics for IP solutions were making sense mostly for the enterprise and larger installations. Today the market is largely divided between higher-end integrators who are comfortable with both software only and appliance type solutions and smaller installers and integrators who service small to medium size businesses and who prefer NVR appliances. Most of these won't even consider software only solutions. This second category may even be the sweet spot since most in the first catagory have long siince adopted IP solutions and many in the second are just now doing so. So Milestone had a choice to abandon this second category to the competiton or abandon their "core beliefs" and try to capture some of that market. The arguments for using software only VMS are still very compelling but often fall on deaf ears. So if you can't beat 'em join 'em.

My opinion only, this is all Canon. John asked a question just after the buyout that basically asked if it was a good move or not. I remarked something to the effect it would not take Canon long to change things. Milestone has had a market stance for years - open platform, software only, etc. They are now owned by someone else. That old market stance no longer applies. That was them then, this is us now.

This was absolutely inevitable from a Canon perspective. To Bill's point, Milestone is "perceived" as a market leader, and yes the market is fractured to the point that there is no break-away leader. Milestone has always had excellent marketing. That too will change. Canon does not have the same marketing ability. That fractional market makes it tough on integrators and very tough on end-users in years to come. Who knows if half of these people will be in business 5 years from now?

There is a very old adage in business, you grow or you die. This was inevitable. I predict in the next couple of years, Axis will have a full VMS product that competes with everyone else. Their market share is slowing to a grind. Competition is everywhere and profits are tougher to realize. You do what you have to do to survive.