Milestone Exceeds Benchmarks

• By Ralph C. Jensen
• Mar 04, 2011

Successful innovation is not just coming up with the next best thing, according to  Lars Thinggaard, president and CEO of Milestone Systems. He said success is made by working closely with the customer.

Thinggaard and other members of the Milestone management team hosted their annual Milestone Integrated Platform conference, this year in San Antonio. And for the first time corporate finance bankers participated in the security summit.

Among the new products announced by Milestone, which will be shown at ISC West in Las Vegas in April, will be XProtect Essential NVR. The XProtect Essential software will be sold pre-loaded on NVR hardware. Product rollout will start in Europe first in Q2 and roll out to the United States market thereafter.

It is designed for small businesses. Its out-of-the-box features manage the basic need of IP video surveillance operation for single-server installation of up to 26 cameras and five concurrent users. XProtect Essential provides the combination of strong surveillance capabilities with ease of use and a flexible licensing model that allows upgrades and seamless system expansions.

It also includes the newest XProtect Smart Client with a friendly user interface for daily operations: control cameras, view live or play back recordings simultaneously, investigate quickly with the Sequence Explorer, create and export evidence fast.

“It is brilliant simplicity,” Bohn said. “Designed for the basic needs of smaller businesses that want eacy-to-use yet advanced surveillance features at an unbeatable price and capability ratio.”

The Milestone Integration Platform SDK 1.0 also was announced, and provides Milestone partners with a world of innovative possibilities: the comprehensive development framework makes it easy to integrate security and business solutions (including multiple video analytics applications) with the open platform Milestone XProtect video management software (VMS) products.

The Milestone Integration Platform SDK 1.0 is flexible, supporting a multitude of integration methods. The unique plug-in architecture enables seamless integration of third-party applications with the Milestone management interface and XProtect Smart Client user interface.

Milestone officials also shared results of company growth -- 56 percent from 2009 to 2010, and 41 percent in 2010.

“2010 was a great year for us as a whole,” Thinggaard said. “We view our growth through 2014 at 28 percent. Milestone is the No. 1 provider of video management solutions.”

New and updated products are a key part of the Milestone platform as the company invested $38 million from 2007 to 2011, and plan to continue that emphasis in the product level. The company will invest $11 million in product development this year alone.

Training has become one of the renewable resources at Milestone, and the company announced a partner certification program with Connex International, headed up by Kevin Marier, CEO and founder.

According to IMS Research, the market for IP video recorders is expected to grow 38 percent through 2014, which is why Milestone was pleased to announce that it has 7,440 certified partners, and is anxious to provide training to each of the partners who want to become a Milestone professional certified partner.

Thinggaard also projected emerging technologies, which have high-growth potential in the next few years. They include biometrics, VMS, IP cameras, PSIM, high-resolution cameras and implementation and use of the cloud.

Christian Bohn, Milestone’s vice president of marketing, also addressed the group, outlining five key points the company will follow. The points include a common external interface (API), published documentation (SDK), training, consulting and support, and a promise to continue working with solutions providers.

During Thursday afternoon’s keynote address, Fredrik Nilsson, general manager of Axis Communication for the Americas, said that the well-worn prediction that analog would make a comeback because of the 2009 recession was actually just the opposite, with IP video surveillance systems continuing its strong surge in the marketplace.

Milestone concluded its annual integrators meeting Thursday, again emphasizing training and continued growth.

“Training benefits everyone in the security industry,” Thinggaard said. “We have more than 100,000 end users, training helps us live up to the model of the open platform.”