Why Security Managers Need the Wal-Mart of PSIM

All of the PSIM companies focus on serving the high end. It kills their chances at making a major difference in the security market and limits their financial upside.

Ports, military bases, governments and mega-corporations are all willing to spend significant money on PSIM. It's not difficult to justify spending $1 Million plus on each system. Plus, there are thousands of these organizations.

The PSIM companies design their solutions and companies around mega-projects which is great for huge deals but is antithetical and overkill for the needs of the other 99% of security managers.

The rest of the market needs the Wal-Mart treatment - readily available, inexpensive, basic offerings that they can afford and use with what they already have. Specifically, existing PSIM's advanced workflow management is unnecessary, overly complex and cost prohibitive for most organizations. Most security managers simply need to integrate and display their systems in a single UI. That's it. Make it easy to setup and sell basic systems at $10,000 and you have a PSIM for 'the rest of us.'

It will be interesting to see if any of the current crop of PSIM manufacturers are willing and can take this approach. Orsus was clearly targeted at the high end. Vidsys seems to be too. Proximex is exploring mass market PSIM and CNL often advocates a more turnkey approach (based on its start as a hosted video provider [link no longer available]).

If PSIM is going to make a difference for the heart of the security market, it needs more of a Wal-Mart approach. We will see when and if we get this.

[Update 2012: Still nothing close to this.]