Innovation and Internet of Things to influence 2017 security market

Continued consolidation and price pressures were factors in 2016 in the security market, which grew as expected.

However, there is still interesting innovation being developed to further the market, such as the industry’s first PTZ with laser focus, says Fredrik Nilsson, VP, Americas, for Axis Communications. “While the video surveillance market is getting close to being 100% converged over to IP, there are many other IoT markets that are early in the cycle of convergence, such as intelligent audio systems, access control and intercom,” he noted.

Increased importance of video intelligence

For 2017, Nilsson predicts that innovation in video surveillance will continue to hold strong and that video intelligence will become increasingly more important.

Additionally, small and mid-sized systems will continue the trend of implementing complete solutions, while ease of use, design and installation will remain of the essence, he adds. “I anticipate that the industry will see the newer markets, such as audio, access control and intercom, continue their switch over to IP,” Nilsson says. “The winners will be companies with a long-term view of the market, focusing on value. The losers will be companies that do not keep innovating.”

Cybersecurity to play a major role in security

Cybersecurity will also continue to play a much bigger part in the security industry, says Jeff Burgess, president of BCDVideo. “The IT hacks have now become IoT hacks,” he says. Burgess notes that recent cyber-attacks that paralysed the East Coast were deployed through security cameras. “It is imperative that video servers, whether access control or recording, have mechanisms in place to deflect any incoming attempted breach that could come across the video network,” says Burgess. “More and more, we are seeing requests to have the video network tied to the servers as part of the video infrastructure to better prevent these breaches.”

“I am certain the overall economic uptick affected the security marketplace in 2016,” says Burgess. “Security spending is way up. But the fact that today’s video is being used proactively for analytics, customer service, quality control, training, etc. has been a caused a revolution of sorts for how businesses are energised.”

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