MIPS 2017 garnered partners and integrators promoting open platform initiatives

Milestone Systems, the open platform company in IP video management software (VMS), held its 12th Milestone Integration Platform Symposium (MIPS) this month in San Antonio, Texas, with over 500 attendees. It is an open platform community event engaging hundreds of channel and alliance partners, customers, media people, Milestone experts and management. Milestone business activities and product innovations were shared, and 60 solution partners showcased their integrated offerings and services.

Community focus on combined solution power

This year’s event theme ‘Together We Make the World See the Future’ reflected a newly clarified company purpose. The emphasis is on community focus for the combined solution power of the Milestone open platform and its partners. CEO & President Lars Thinggaard appeared virtually as the audience put on VR headsets to visit beautiful landmarks of Denmark as inspiration to ‘see the future’.

“We can only do this together,” said Kenneth Hune Petersen, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Milestone, from the stage. “We believe that the co-creation of value is unique to our open platform community.”

Milestone community initiatives

Petersen presented the three pillars of the new Milestone community initiatives begun last year, and more are planned in future. The Milestone Marketplace will start with new developments for the Milestone Store, the Solution Finder is evolving into the Solution Portal, and the Developers Forum is expanding.

The afternoon was devoted to touring the Community Innovation Lab where Milestone Solution and Technology Partners demonstrated the latest innovations in the industry. After more VR fun watching introductions for the exhibit sections, each group was led by Milestone managers, and feedback walls in each category throughout the hall journey invited brainstorming.

Key note speeches

On day two, Milestone VP Americas Tim Palmquist gave his keynote speech, further developing his topic from last year’s MIPS event: End to End is a Dead End; The Road to the Future is Open. He questioned whether the glory days are over for the surveillance market and recommended a more realistic look at today’s maturing IP market which is experiencing a natural consolidation, product price wars and other competitive factors.

“It’s no longer fast growth and ‘easy money’ like the early phases in a technology lifecycle, so new business models must be developed to encompass the next market disruptions that will come. Milestone’s open platform community offers a framework to succeed – together – leveraging each other’s innovations,” said Palmquist.

Digitisation of security systems

Mike Sherwood, Milestone Director of Technical Operations, Americas, spoke on ‘The Engine of Innovation’: “We are driven to see one another succeed: we cannot develop in a vacuum. The best companies understand that it takes more than just one company alone to really succeed. I would reword Neil Armstrong’s famous moon landing remark, that we believe in many small steps to make a big leap!”

DELL VP Ron Pugh took the stage to talk about the digitisation of everything in our lives and how the Internet of Things (IoT) can unlock the potential of the unconnected by bridging IT and Operational Technology (OT). Milestone Partner NMS presented the breakthrough SpotterRF compact radar surveillance integration with XProtect VMS that gives aerial and ground views for perimeter protection.

Milestone open platform solutions

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport shared knowledge gained from growing their systems on the Milestone open platform, including RFIDreaders to manage taxi traffic, and a Unified Command Vehicle with six cameras as well as a Mobile Camera Trailer with solar power. Jamie Ritchie said: “We are building for capacity with a focus on multi-purpose solutions. In our work, we always run into the unknown: the future is just the next exit away – and with the open platform, we are excited about it!”

Breakout sessions in the afternoon had parallel Technology and Business Tracks covering such topics as ‘New Cool stuff in the XProtect platform’, ‘Advances in Technology Evolving the Business Model’, Video Enabling IoT with Metadata’, ‘Public Safety & Transportation Interoperability’, ‘Video-Verified Access Control’ and ‘Cloud Solutions that Work with Today’s Technology’.

Global Advisory Board

In early 2016 Milestone created a new global Advisory Board with the first of several groups focused on the Advanced products. Others are being formed to focus on the Business Ready portfolio, overall Business Strategy and the Developers Forum. Each has members that represent the spectrum of stakeholder roles: end users, partners and Milestone staff. Monthly questionnaires have been sent (in addition to the annual global partner survey), and quarterly meetings held.

“The feedback we are getting from our community is a key element for setting the direction in our product development. We see a big opportunity for high-performing, platform-centric products with strong connectivity. This shift from product to platform thinking applies to both our software and hardware offerings, and is initially addressed in the XProtect 2017 R1 release,” said Milestone CTO Bjorn Eilertsen.

Awards and recognitions

The final night of MIPS announced the following awards:

• Anixter: Distribution Partner of the Year (Americas)
• Wesco: Distribution Partner of the Year (USA)
• Southwest Microwave: Solution Partner of the Year
• Quantum Corporation: Technology Partner of the Year
• Differential Networks/ Spotter RF/ NMS: MIP Integration of the Year
• Convergint Technologies (Seattle, WA): Installation of the Year
• Brady Integrated Security: Education Partner of the Year
• Convergint Technologies (Houston, TX): Retail Partner of the Year
• Tactical Micro/Benchmark Electronics: Transportation Partner of the Year
• Tech Systems: Healthcare Partner of the Year
• Stone Security: City Surveillance Partner of the Year
• App-Techs Corporation: Regional Partner of the Year AND Government Partner of the Year
• Prosegur Technologia (Argentina): Regional Partner of the Year
• Presidio: National Partner of the Year
• Bosch: Camera Partner of the Year, Americas
• Axis Communications: Supported Camera #6,000 in Milestone Device Pack release 9.0
• The first-ever Milestone Community Kickstarter Contest Winner of awards valued at $50,000 was Parking Spotter.

Milestone Systems will be hosting MIPS Community events in Macao end of February and in Dubai early May, as well as other Milestone events in many regions throughout the year.