Verkada has leveled false allegations against Avigilon, as part of their aggressive marketing tactics against the 'dinosaurs' in the 'ancient' video surveillance market.
Despite being obviously false and despite IPVM bringing this to Verkada's attention, the company will not retract it.
[Update: After IPVM published this report, Verkada finally responded to IPVM with changes in their assumptions and claims. They are now deceptive rather than obviously factually wrong.]
Inside this note, we examine Verkada's false allegations and expose what Verkada is doing.
1. ******* ** ****** *** ********* **** ******** *********: Importantly, our previous analysis had assumed 5 separate locations, each with 20 cameras. That was not clear in the previous comparison and drives cost from NVR-based systems like Avigilon.
3. ******* *** * ****** *** **** ******* ******** ************ ** ******* *&*: We agree that ongoing maintenance and operations costs vary between systems, but many of our customers have complained about the high cost of maintaining NVRs across multiple locations. For simplicity of the comparison, however, we have removed those costs from our analysis.
Most 'wrong' things on the Internet are issues of opinion, not fact. Should marijuana be legal? Is the PRC more unethical than North Korea? etc.
In Verkada's case here, they made specific factual assertions. It's not like they said Avigilon is expensive or bad, they claimed an exact price.
Corporations Not People
This is a corporation, not a random individual. If BigBoy69 says something on Twitter it does not carry the same weight of a company valued at a half-billion dollars like Verkada is.
No Retraction
This is the most important point. Verkada refuses to retract nor address it. This is quite a sign of how their organization operates.
They could have defused it by saying it was an oversight (regardless of whether it was). They chose not to.
Do people see these prices and never bother to check them? We're talking about schools and cities spending a cool million on this baloney, so it would be wildly irresponsible if they didn't get some quotes from the old farts with their dinosaur tech.
In a different thread, someone mentioned that the cost saving of staying with Milestone was (to me) surprisingly small, which makes me wonder - what's the real, actual, difference in price. If we assume that an end-user genuinely doesn't care about PTZ, ONVIF etc. is Verkada then cheaper than an Avigilon installation?
Do people see these prices and never bother to check them?
Yes, more frequently then you might think. Particularly for companies like Avigilon, where price lists are not always easy to come by. Stuff like this can be used to set biases by the sales person, positioning a product as expensive might cause those doing purchase analysis to disregard those solutions altogether during the early phases of the project.
I have been in front of decision makers on large projects that were just wildly misinformed and clueless about general offerings and pricing more times than I can count. The smart ones will certainly do their own research, but that is not the "average" buyer.
I'm old. I don't have time or energy for these "guess the price" games. If the price is not advertised, I just move on. I don't fill out the "have a rep call you" form, or any of that nonsense.
Have you ever been dragged into one of those high-street stores that sell fancy clothes where you have to dig out a small tag with an absurd price point? I hate those. Take me to Old-Navy where there's a big sign that says "Sweaters $19".
I'm surprised that so many are buying surveillance systems, costing thousands, as if they were shopping for a new pair of sweatpants.
So what does a "system" cost from the different manufacturers? Perhaps there's a piece for IPVM in this. Set up a benchmark system, and get some quotes (w/o installation), and lets see some numbers.
System costs vary a great deal. As close to a fair comparison as possible is one using MSRP for all parties. MSRP is usually readily available for all manufacturers.
That being said. Many manufacturers do not make their various discounted pricing levels available to the public.
They offer those discounts to Distribution and to direct dealers at varying levels,
Distribution then applies their own markup at varying levels based on the customer. (customers who do more business with a distributor get the best discount from them)
The integrator then adds their markup and labor. Also varying depending on the customer.
IPVM leaves the labor piece out of the equation as does Verkada in their analysis. but in the end that is part of the cost and something the end user has to consider.
If all manufacturers just posted what their price was and it was the same for everyone, then that would mean no volume discounts for dealers that sell only 1 line of cameras, no volume discounts for dealers that buy all their product and equipment through one distributor etc.
IPVM leaves the labor piece out of the equation as does Verkada in their analysis. but in the end that is part of the cost and something the end user has to consider.
Verkada had installation and maintenance pricing in their original post but dropped it in the second one.
Their original maintenance pricing (mentioned in the post) was absurd but the install difference was more reasonable.
The end user would have to consider the dramatic advantage Avigilon has in capabilities. Even from Verkada's own marketing / public claims, their main target / success seems to be versus Hikua, where they are clearly far more expensive but offer added value.
I do think it's worth addressing the whole 'any press is good press' logic.
In my experience, that tends to be the case when:
(a) A company has limited resources to reach out to customers.
(b) the negative press is actually viewed positively to many people
On these factors, (a) is not the case for Verkada. They already have 60+ salespeople on their way to doubling soon enough with the new $40 million. They are going to be able to reach virtually any prospect they want, without any 3rd party press.
The other factor is who will view this criticism positively? I do think there are some people who consider the industry to be ancient, stone age, filled with dinosaurs, etc. That will resonate. On the other hand, I think there are a lot more that are going to be offended, understandably.
Now, maybe that is one of their innovations. Pretty much every company in the industry seeks a positive reputation as that, on net, helps sales. Verkada could prove this wrong.
My impression, though, from interacting with them numerously, as recently as yesterday, is that they have not thought through these aspects.
I am afraid from what I see is that such negative marketing sometimes works if the purchasing decision makers have not really been exposed to other options.
Wow.. Does this company actually retain any real talent? Seriously...
PS: after all the recent posts about Verkada Sales tough guys nothing strikes me more thinking they remind me of Kevin Gage's character in Knockaround Guys
Update: Verkada has now responded. Below is Verkada's response in full:
Thank you for the feedback on our blog post. Based on your article, we have updated the assumptions and details in our cost comparison. From the data publicly available to us, we stand behind our assertion that Verkada provides a superior TCO to systems from Avigilon and Meraki. However, we did find some areas of the analysis that we needed to update, and thank IPVM and its readership for pointing those out.
1. Verkada is better for customers with multiple locations:Importantly, our previous analysis had assumed 5 separate locations, each with 20 cameras. That was not clear in the previous comparison and drives cost from NVR-based systems like Avigilon.
2. Avigilon still charges a license:We have included Avigilon software licenses in the analysis. Please see the datasheet available on Avigilon's website, "Avigilon Control Center licenses must be purchased separately."
3. Verkada has a better TCO even without counting improvements in ongoing O&M:We agree that ongoing maintenance and operations costs vary between systems, but many of our customers have complained about the high cost of maintaining NVRs across multiple locations. For simplicity of the comparison, however, we have removed those costs from our analysis.
IPVM will be responding with analysis in the morning US time.
I must point out Avigilon does have cameras with SSD storage though pricing doesn't work out so well. Avigilon does have more model options with SSD cameras through cloud management is missing. I would think Avigilon could add SSDs to all camera models plus add cloud management and they would have a hit on their hands.
Hopefully this issue with Verkada shows their is value here and Avigilon puts some effort in the ES camera line. Avigilon's ES cameras are far superior to Verkada's so this could get interesting fast.
Michael, why do you want Blue to work with ES cameras? Since Blue has storage built-in, it can connect to regular cameras, including 3rd party ones with ONVIF, obviating the need to have storage inside each camera.
There's far more of a benefit from having remote cloud access than not having a recorder appliance on-site (indeed with Verkada, every camera is now a recorder appliance on-site).
Why wouldn't I want the ES cameras to be able to be managed from BLUE? They already have them and Verkada proved there is a market for this. I didn't say get rid of the boxes which allow 3rd party cameras but managing cameras with onboard storage via the cloud would be very useful. BLUE should be the glue that brings everything together and adds cloud/remote access to ACC IMO. ES cameras, ES recorders, ACC systems, BLUE recorders and ACM.
Why wouldn't I want the ES cameras to be able to be managed from BLUE?
What is the practical benefit? What use cases do you see benefiting more from ES + Blue vs regular cameras + Blue? I am genuinely asking.
They already have them and Verkada proved there is a market for this
I don't think Verkada has proven there is some special undiscovered market for on-board storage. They have proven there is a market for a telesales team to sell direct with a Silicon Valley warchest. And I think that is a big deal but only indirectly that it is using on-board storage.
What is the practical benefit? What use cases do you see benefiting more from ES + Blue vs regular cameras + Blue? I am genuinely asking.
Flexibility.
With the box, you are always paying for more than you need unless you get exactly 8 or 16 cameras. I only need 1 or 2 cameras but I have to get a box for 8 or I have 8 cameras and now I want to add 9th so I have to get another box. Using ES cameras without a box plus having box/server option now you have maximum flexibility. I have customers with hundred plus sites and most sites have 1 or 2 cameras but a couple of sites have 5-10 cameras and the head end has 30+. The 1-2 camera sites get ES cameras, the 5-10 get boxes, the head office gets ACC with the video wall all brought together with the cloud.
Again I am not saying remove the box or remove current features I am saying add cloud. Do you want a local client? YES You want cloud access and backups? YES You have 100+ locations with a couple of cameras each site and want local and cloud access? YES You have a large city-wide deployment and you want to partner with local business and share access? YES Remote people want cloud access but command center wants a local video wall? YES ... I want it all.
Verkada overspecified the Avigilon products in the Pricing Breakdown.
With the appropriate equipment, Avigilon Total Cost would be ~50% less than what Verkada says, and overall ~40% lower Total Cost than Verkada.
Given that Verkada specified 3MP varifocal cameras with 30 days of storage, the appropriate products are:
24-Port HD Video Appliance with 12TB of storage which includes 24 ACC licenses: $10,000 MSRP
Indoor H4 SL 3MP varifocal IR cameras: $495 MSRP x 12 = $5,940
Outdoor H4 SL 3MP varifocal IR cameras: $570 MSRP x 8 = $4,560
Looking at Verkada's updated table, that equals a "Total Cost" of $20,500 MSRP per site for an NVR, Cameras, and Licensing, compared to $41,640 that they claimed for Avigilon and the $33,560 they claimed for themselves.
Verkada will be less expensive for a multi site install, with all the downsides that come with it. Do you know how quick it is to search 2 hours of video for a crime or other event on a local server? Imagine trying to do that with constantly buffering cloud storage??
I would disagree slightly to part of this. The downsides to cloud based recording are dependent on location and what internet speed is available. Upload speed is the primary issue with getting video to the cloud server. However, once it's in the cloud, download speed is generally fast and the files are generally hosted on servers far superior to the ones you can afford locally with data center pipes much larger as well.
My main issue with cloud is when the internet goes down, much is often lost. I do like the hybrid approach of making a duplicate of data available in the cloud. However, upload speed and cost is generally the issue especially with high camera counts.
If you are comparing local access to the cloud, local access wins. If you are remote viewing, cloud data is generally faster. I have 5Mb upload and I can scrub Google data on a consumer Nest unit than I can on my Spectrum system. I prefer my Spectrum system and don't plan on owning Nest cameras, but there are certain advantages to the cloud. It really just depends on what area of the country you are located and how much you want to pay for bandwidth.
I haven't tested Verkada, but I have seen a lot of their marketing. Being a truly closed system makes them just like a Nest product, which is fine for a consumer, but I wouldn't want to be tied to a limited amount of cameras. I don't see any multi-sensor cameras in their lineup. With Avigilon you have a lot of options for cameras, but can also add other manufacturers when needed.
I’m missing the TCO benefit when you purchase 3 years of service and don’t extend to the 4th year. Avigilon (or almost any other system) still allows you to repair, record, view. There’s a value in that.
What does a 10 year warranty do if you stop paying the subscription after 3 years?
Maybe a little asterisk to reflect *requires continuous subscription?
"From the data publicly available to us, we stand behind our assertion that Verkada provides a superior TCO to systems from Avigilon and Meraki."
they left off " - over 5 years" at the end of that sentence.
Because they certainly would never make the same assertion over 6 year or 7 years, because the way they are comparing costs falls down hard(er) each and every year after 5.
Do customers replace their surveillance systems every 5 years?
A&E Friend of mine attended a Verkada A&E webinar recently. Asked them a lot of questions about their cameras and got very "salesy" answers that he said indicated their sales team knows next-to-nothing about camera or imaging technology. When he pressed more about why Verkada's camera specification sheets were so conspicuously devoid of...specifications, he got this response, "In general our customers are buying based on our dashboard, software and ease of use and deployment, not camera stats."
And that's all well and fine, just stop pretending they're a camera company first, and a cloud back-end second.
Also, my friend noted that Verkada frequently used fear tactics in their webinar that specifically attacked other security manufacturers as being vulnerable to hackers. He said many who attended were critical of this fear-monger approach.
If they are buying based on the software, then the software should be good enough and built to work with third party cameras from camera manufacturers that do care about camera stats. I'm all for great software, but the hardware is just as important. Verkada can try to act like they are an end to end system like/better than Avigilon, but they are not Avigilon.
my friend noted that Verkada frequently used fear tactics in their webinar that specifically attacked other security manufacturers as being vulnerable to hackers
"Yeah so I stopped using those dangerous NVRs and instead I locked us into this closed system that has 4 models and charges us $199 per year per camera forever"
So help me understand why this is such a good thing when the offering is so bad, is sold on fear and lies by smarmy college boys with no knowledge of the industry. I suppose this is America first - yes?
I am not particularly proud that they are American nor that they appear to be what Silicon Valley is increasingly devolving into.
I do think their advocacy for cloud remote access is a good thing for the industry. While this feature has been around for many years, many of the largest incumbents either do not provide it (e.g., Milestone), make it very complicated / costly to add (e.g., Genetec) or works poorly without still port forwarding (e.g., Hikvision). Either these 'dinosaurs' will resolve that or Verkada will be able to continue to use that as a key selling point.
Do you think Blackrock doesn't have any foreign investors? Motorola's office might be in the US, but I assure you that there is plenty of foreign money and influence. No such thing as a North American company in today's world.
Unless I am wrong, Silver Lake has a pair of board seats at Motorola Solutions. Silver Lake has made a fortune in Chinese money and has deep relationships with many Chinese technology powerhouses. Not to mention Blackrock and it's holdings.
Lol, yes, Avigilon was successful. The key question was how much was the success due to their deceptive marketing vs their overall product quality / strategy? If Avigilon has not used so much deceptive marketing early on would they be in the same place they are today? I don't know.
My theory is, looking at both Verkada and Avigilon, who have parallels in both product strategy and sales / marketing is that the culture one creates for a hard-charging sales team is the same culture that creates deceptive marketing, such that having one fosters the other.
Why is no one pointing out that they completely neglected to mention the $300-500/mo dedicated WAN connection required for each site? $4-6k/yr x 5 years adds $20-30k to the TCO of each Verkada system that is not required for an Avigilon or other system. Most conventional systems are monitored on site and even if they are monitored remotely they are not as bandwidth intensive as a cloud-based system.
I learned about Verkada from one of our ACS customers.
They are a well to do town with a smart IT director. He had EXACQ in some schools that were installed as part of renovations/construction work. He wanted to add cameras here and there but didn't want to keep going down the Tyco road so..
He had found a reseller that was a managed services IT company that was quoting him Verkada just above dealer cost. Not MSRP as represented on their web site. T
he IT guy was buying the cameras and was in love with the five year software licenses. So that is the camera with 30 days of storage - cloud backup and all in 5 year contract. So even at list he is $1,600 for an interior camera and he is good for five years.
He had so many existing data drops in various locations - he was using those to support these cameras.
No need for a pesky security integration company...hah.
I tried...
I said what if the WAN goes down - no big deal he said, cameras still record...
I said what if Verkada goes out of business.. - not a big concern...
I suggested the software sucked - but then I got a demo of it - it doesn't...
I said yeah what about latency... well it wasn't that bad...
I said what about smearing and quality issues - in demo it wasn't that bad and only had intermittently...
We (a school) compared Verkada to Avigilon and Verkada was considerably more expensive not to mention they only had limited camera models. We are very pleased with Avigilon and are not ready to rent video cameras when a good system will last several years before needing updating.
Consider the source, one of my tag lines is no honor among thieves
We have always sold our systems with service as a main component. System is only as good as the installation and support offered
I have seen Verkada in some schools. Schools we do we have to do an inservice training every year because of personnel changes
outlandish claims are easy to sell against.
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Comments (60)
Undisclosed End User #1
Thanks for making me feel very old. On the other hand, with age comes industry wisdom.
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Greg Hussey
wait something on the internet wasn't accurate?
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Michael Miller
Can you make this public so we can share since they will not retract this post?
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Undisclosed #2
I can't figure out if "smarketer" is a typo, or if she thinks she is clever.
All things considered, she should probably fix it, either way.
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Morten Tor Nielsen
05/08/19 05:53pm
Do people see these prices and never bother to check them? We're talking about schools and cities spending a cool million on this baloney, so it would be wildly irresponsible if they didn't get some quotes from the old farts with their dinosaur tech.
In a different thread, someone mentioned that the cost saving of staying with Milestone was (to me) surprisingly small, which makes me wonder - what's the real, actual, difference in price. If we assume that an end-user genuinely doesn't care about PTZ, ONVIF etc. is Verkada then cheaper than an Avigilon installation?
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Rick Caruthers
05/08/19 08:32pm
Pricing from manufacturers are not that hard to find....If that company has a GSA contract you can search here:
https://www.gsaelibrary.gsa.gov/ElibMain/home.do
This will show you their GSA cost which in most cases the mark up no more than 30% from dealer to GSA..
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Undisclosed Integrator #3
The more preposterous the claim, the more chance for coverage by IPVM and chances for success.
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Abdelhamid Metwally
I am afraid from what I see is that such negative marketing sometimes works if the purchasing decision makers have not really been exposed to other options.
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Undisclosed Integrator #5
Who really cares? I admire IPVM standing up for their spouse, but is this really a headline type of event? Let’s bash China instead.
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Undisclosed Distributor #6
Wow.. Does this company actually retain any real talent? Seriously...
PS: after all the recent posts about Verkada Sales tough guys nothing strikes me more thinking they remind me of Kevin Gage's character in Knockaround Guys
Avigilon steps in at about 1:00 min
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John Honovich
Update: Verkada has now responded. Below is Verkada's response in full:
IPVM will be responding with analysis in the morning US time.
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Undisclosed Integrator #7
Verkada will be less expensive for a multi site install, with all the downsides that come with it. Do you know how quick it is to search 2 hours of video for a crime or other event on a local server? Imagine trying to do that with constantly buffering cloud storage??
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Undisclosed Manufacturer #8
I’m missing the TCO benefit when you purchase 3 years of service and don’t extend to the 4th year. Avigilon (or almost any other system) still allows you to repair, record, view. There’s a value in that.
What does a 10 year warranty do if you stop paying the subscription after 3 years?
Maybe a little asterisk to reflect *requires continuous subscription?
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Undisclosed #4
they left off " - over 5 years" at the end of that sentence.
Because they certainly would never make the same assertion over 6 year or 7 years, because the way they are comparing costs falls down hard(er) each and every year after 5.
Do customers replace their surveillance systems every 5 years?
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Undisclosed Manufacturer #9
A&E Friend of mine attended a Verkada A&E webinar recently. Asked them a lot of questions about their cameras and got very "salesy" answers that he said indicated their sales team knows next-to-nothing about camera or imaging technology. When he pressed more about why Verkada's camera specification sheets were so conspicuously devoid of...specifications, he got this response, "In general our customers are buying based on our dashboard, software and ease of use and deployment, not camera stats."
And that's all well and fine, just stop pretending they're a camera company first, and a cloud back-end second.
Also, my friend noted that Verkada frequently used fear tactics in their webinar that specifically attacked other security manufacturers as being vulnerable to hackers. He said many who attended were critical of this fear-monger approach.
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Ryan Karpilo
Verkada who? Registered Domain in 2015?
Avigilon | Motorola Solution Inc, (1 Billion USD Net Revenue) Registered Domain in 2004? Truly a North America company / United States and Canada.
Let’s not buy a solution because they say it works and have the price to beat it. Price matters yes, working matters more.
Let’s buy a proven solution for said customer vertical and the case study to back it up.
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John Honovich
Btw, I was just looking through an old Avigilon post and young Avigilon was hysterical with their deceptive claims:
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Undisclosed #10
Will Verkada be at this weekends upcoming Maker's Faire?
Probably not, and their puny corporate office is blocks away.
Such a shame that a bay area company cannot help support the local hackers.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Next-week-s-Maker-Faire-in-San-Mateo-could-be-13836040.php
The Bay Area is losing many old school geek events, hangouts and businesses.
Remember http://www.weirdstuff.com/ ?? RIP my geeks, nerds and perusing novelist of a once vibrant silicon valley.
Silicon Valley is doomed.
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Damith Jayasinghe
well first issue is Avigilon license's are not annual.
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Jason Brown
Why is no one pointing out that they completely neglected to mention the $300-500/mo dedicated WAN connection required for each site? $4-6k/yr x 5 years adds $20-30k to the TCO of each Verkada system that is not required for an Avigilon or other system. Most conventional systems are monitored on site and even if they are monitored remotely they are not as bandwidth intensive as a cloud-based system.
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Undisclosed Integrator #13
Think everyone is missing the point.
I learned about Verkada from one of our ACS customers.
They are a well to do town with a smart IT director. He had EXACQ in some schools that were installed as part of renovations/construction work. He wanted to add cameras here and there but didn't want to keep going down the Tyco road so..
He had found a reseller that was a managed services IT company that was quoting him Verkada just above dealer cost. Not MSRP as represented on their web site. T
he IT guy was buying the cameras and was in love with the five year software licenses. So that is the camera with 30 days of storage - cloud backup and all in 5 year contract. So even at list he is $1,600 for an interior camera and he is good for five years.
He had so many existing data drops in various locations - he was using those to support these cameras.
No need for a pesky security integration company...hah.
I tried...
I said what if the WAN goes down - no big deal he said, cameras still record...
I said what if Verkada goes out of business.. - not a big concern...
I suggested the software sucked - but then I got a demo of it - it doesn't...
I said yeah what about latency... well it wasn't that bad...
I said what about smearing and quality issues - in demo it wasn't that bad and only had intermittently...
This is the future everyone...
NOTICE: This comment has been moved to its own discussion: Verkada - This Is The Future Everyone...
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Undisclosed End User #15
We (a school) compared Verkada to Avigilon and Verkada was considerably more expensive not to mention they only had limited camera models. We are very pleased with Avigilon and are not ready to rent video cameras when a good system will last several years before needing updating.
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Undisclosed Manufacturer #16
Consider the source, one of my tag lines is no honor among thieves
We have always sold our systems with service as a main component. System is only as good as the installation and support offered
I have seen Verkada in some schools. Schools we do we have to do an inservice training every year because of personnel changes
outlandish claims are easy to sell against.
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