Milestone boosts mid-market focus with new VP and business unit

Janne Jakobsen has been hired as Vice President to run the Professional Products division

Milestone Systems, the open platform company in IP video management software (VMS), continues to achieve growth in the market for networked surveillance solutions. Not sitting on their laurels, Milestone management has created an organisational focus towards the high-volume, small to medium-size business (SMB) sector by creating a new company unit called Professional Products. Janne Jakobsen has been hired as Vice President to run this division. She previously has lead Bang & Olufsen’s user experience department and was responsible for Nokia’s Smart Phone portfolio business in Europe.

John Blem, Chief Product Officer and Founder of Milestone Systems, states: “Strategic plans at Milestone include further tailoring our software and marketing to match ongoing customer and partner needs for different segments. We are particularly pleased to get Janne on board with her experience in business and product management from Bang & Olufsen and her leadership of large international departments at Nokia. Janne has the right combination of passion, experience, business and user perspectives that will make Milestone even better at satisfying demand.”

“Milestone Systems is a very ambitious and exciting company in fast growth,” says Janne. “I aim to do my part to make our products for small and medium-size business even more attractive - not only with the best software but also with the right marketing, channel model and collaborations with our partners.” 

Janne Jakobsen has been responsible for determining the user interface in some of Nokia’s top product models, and this user perspective will have positive applications for Milestone’s offerings:

“Milestone is already moving full speed ahead to evolve our user friendliness and functionality. Customers are requesting minimal complexity, both at the product level and in relation to installation and maintenance. That’s what we’re taking into account for the next versions of our software, where the user interface will be adjusted to fit different target group requirements – it is the visual impression that affects how user-friendly we think products are,” explains Janne.