Where's Panasonic? Now Call It i-PRO

What about the Advidia product line that is now being sold through and supported by Panasonic?

I think that they have a chance now that they are unburdened by the mothership, however, they are still have premium products. They need to develop a line of in-house cost effective models, with IR and in more form factors.

They also need a knowledgeable sales team, as compared to the days under Rance and others. Back then it was all about the pipeline and selling to their verticals (hey now that we are talking about cameras, who wants a printer or a projector, or vice versa). The majority of the sales team I have know from Panasonic in the past 5+ years didn't have experience in the security or access control markets.

Thanks John, to be honest with you I have had more and substantial success with the Advidia line than Panasonic and combined with the VI license it is very competitive. Also we have been pleasantly surprised with the reliability so far.

I appreciate your response and feed back. Stay safe.

i-Pro can leverage the relationship capital Panasonic has. There are still quite a few enterprise legacy accounts using Panasonic. The "Panasonic - evolved" message might work with proper management and talent. They are hiring at a time when most have hiring freezes and many have let people go (I was contacted by a recruiter). I welcome all competition that competes on innovation and value since this drives my company to do the same and ultimately benefits the industry.

I agree, they do need to unify the websites. That being said they only launched the new site a few weeks ago. Hopefully they just set up a redirect to get everything moved over from all the other sites Noel listed, after they bring in all of the content from the other site that the new site is missing. They don't even have the discontinued cameras on the new site.

The Avidia line was something they took over when they merged with Video Insight. They kept it so they could offer a lower priced camera as opposed to the Japanese made Panasonic cameras, which are more expensive. I am told that 2 of the Avidia camera series out of the 3 are produced in china (Hik and Dauah OEM's) but the third is produced somewhere else, not covered by the ban. I don't really see the point of offering something that is banned if you don't have to.

(If what we are hearing is correct about the Chinese camera manufacturers being backed by the military in China, a likely alternate motive seems to arise. It then it makes sense why Chinese cameras are sold so cheap!)

They offer a free license for video insight and monitor cast with the purchase of a camera, but that doesn't mean you have to use them. I can see them trying to work more with the Milestones and Genetecs of the world now which is good, more defined partnerships are what they need. VI is fine for the basic user, but certainly not right for everyone.

It's a good hardened camera with a 5 year warranty. The smart compression is also a great offering. Good for people who are trying to maximize their server capacity and have need for lots of cameras, but not a lot in the budget for servers.

Hopefully their new partnership with Polaris will level up their offerings, I think their cameras are old fashioned looking and could use a face lift.