Milestone Integration Partner Symposium (MIPS) conference 2011 executed successfully

Lars Thinggaard, President and CEO of Milestone Systems addressed the attendees at MIPS 2011 with success

Milestone Systems, the open platform company in IP video management software, held its ninth annual Milestone Integration Partner Symposium (MIPS) conference March 2-4 in San Antonio, Texas. Over 200 people attended from the Milestone ecosystem of distributors, systems integrators, consultants, Manufacturer Alliance Partners and Milestone Solution Partners.

The first day of the gathering was devoted to training courses in sales and technical know-how for the high-end XProtect Video Management Software (VMS) offerings, and for the Milestone Integration Platform SDK (Software Development Kit), used for integrating third-party systems and devices. The remaining days included top management reports and guest speakers. A record number of exhibitors introduced their latest offerings to the Milestone channel partners in the Technology Showcase: Allied Telesis, Arecont Vision, Axis, Basler, Briefcam, Canon, firetide, FLIR, Gish Technology, Honeywell, HP, IBM, intransa, Iomnis, IQinVision, Mobotix, Open Options, Panasonic, Pivot3, Rimage, SONY, SureView Systems, Vivotek and WYNIT.

Lars Thinggaard, President and CEO of Milestone Systems, presented the first keynote speech covering the company's historical progress, current status and future prospects for growing business through open platform integrations. He illustrated such interoperability by showing a video of how XProtect VMS is being used by Milestone Solutions Partner CoastalCOMS to assist surf life saving associations and coastal management needs with their international cloud-based hosted solution to deliver live and recorded video with innovative analytics, measuring wave height, people counting on beaches, and changes in shorelines.

Professionals from security industry were awarded for their services at the grand conference held in Texas

End users shared their security experiences using the Milestone platform: Terry Haukom from the Minnesota Dept of Transportation described how the exemplary system he designed is scaling out to assist the entire Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area, across all first responder agencies. Sergeant Red Buckland from Louisiana State University regaled the audience with anecdotes of student pranks and vandalism that have been resolved and reduced with the video surveillance, as well as how they manage crowded sport stadium weekends, protect valuable laboratories and more.

Robert Bentley described his consultancy and project architect work with both video and access control system implementation designs, most notably with various police organisations in Canada. Charles R. Pierce of Leapfrog Training & Consulting gave a rousing presentation on how to work with A&E's. Other speakers included Fredrik Nilsson, General Manager of Axis Communications Inc; Kurt Gish, President of Gish Technology; retail specialist King Rogers, CEO of KRG Analytics; and Keven Marier, CEO of ConneX International.

Awards for 2010 outstanding performance and collaboration with Milestone Systems were also announced:

• Manufacturer Alliance Partner of the Year was Axis Communications for their breadth of product line allowing the channel to pair XProtect VMS with many different user environments and deployments, increasing the use of HD technologies.
• Milestone Solution Partner of the Year was BriefCam for their Video Synopsis technology that is tightly integrated with XProtect, and for their strategic alignments in the field that produced great results.
• Distributor of the Year was CSC, who has embraced the video-enabling concept of the Milestone open platform and steadily increased sales year on year.
• National Partner of the Year was Johnson Controls Inc (JCI), a national reseller of Milestone VMS, who have proven to be a leading revenue partner in North America, demonstrating commitment from corporate to local branches.
• Regional Partner of the Year was Convergint Houston, who achieved the highest single branch revenue in the country for Milestone Systems. They were praised particularly for a 3,000-camera transportation project that was landed in December 2010.
• Installation of the Year went to Stone Security for their comprehensive work with a global religious organisation, leveraging Milestone's integration with Lenel OnGuard access control.

Milestone Systems also holds the MIPS partner events in other regions: this year it will be held in Bangkok in July and Copenhagen in September.