Research, based on interviews and analysis of sales projections of 40 key vendors, says the brunt of the convergence market will be in event management rather than identity management, and a major portion of the event management products will come from IP cameras and network video recorders (NVRs). Data from Security Sales & Integration’s 2004 Installation Business Report measured the entire electronic security market at $21.9 billion in revenue. “To be blunt, the industry of video surveillance and video analytics are pointless unless they are part of a total event management process,” 4Ai President and founder Steve Hunt told Security Sales & Integration, and added that end users are demanding not only a security product, but a total security solution. “The customer is really annoyed that they can’t get the message through that they don’t want video analytics, they want video analytics in the context of a solution. They don’t want perimeter management, they want a total solution.” SSI was the first physical security publication to announce the formation of 4Ai back in June. The key to the convergence market, according to Hunt, is to remember one word: value. He says convergence is only the end result of the end user wanting more “bang for their buck” and having both physical and network security in one package is one way to give them a value solution. “Everything comes down to value. The end user has a tight budget, tremendous needs and must come up with a right solution,” Hunt says. “End users have a simple problem. They have lots of people doing lots of things and need an easy way to manage it. From the customers’ point of view, the physical security industry has done a bad job of meeting their needs. “New players will make dramatic entries. You can expect big physical conglomerates to add products, but can also fully expect the big IT players to enter this in a big way,” says Hunt, who cites as an example Hewlett-Packard. “The day HP decides to get into the access control and surveillance business, it’s game over for half of the current manufacturers.”
