Milestone Sets Out to Make the World See
Milestone Systems, leader in open platform IP video management software, kicked off their annual symposium in San Antonio, Texas on Feb. 14 with something a little different. As MIPS attendees streamed into the room, each were handed a black bag containing a white box.
“Don’t look in the bag until we tell you,” attendees were told as they took their seats in front of the screens in the grand ballroom at JW Marriott. A few attendees took a peek, but the majority found a place to sit and chatted with others while waiting for the introductions to begin, the black bag placed to the side for the time being.
Tim Palmquist, Vice President of Milestone Americas, took the stage and began to speak about the theme for this year’s symposium. He joked that it would be a western theme because of the event’s location deep in the heart of Texas. “I should have gotten a pair of cowboy boots before I came here,” Palmquist joked.
Soon the mystery of the black bag was revealed as Palmquist explained that the theme wouldn’t be “western cowboy” but instead, “Make the World See.” Inside the bag was a virtual reality headset with the keynote speech from CEO Lars Thinggaard pre-loaded onto it.
The video took the attendees to Denmark through aerial footage and 360-degree video of buildings, streets and offices. The audience looked through their VR goggles to see Thinggaard guide them through the offices explaining Milestone’s company vision.
Returning back from the virtual reality trip to Denmark, Milestone’s Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Kenneth Petersen said to the audience that Milestone is known as the number one VMS solution worldwide. The attendees cheered, but then fell silent as he exclaimed, “But we want to go further.
“We want to be a part of every surveillance installation worldwide,” Petersen said. “The way we are going to do that is through the community.”
The events during Milestone’s Community days really embodied this new theme of ’helping the world to see.’ The traditional expo hall was transformed into Milestone’s Innovation Lab where Milestone Partners were split into seven groups. Attendees moved from section to section while being guided by employees in white lab coats and videos pre-loaded on their virtual reality goggles that explained the importance of each group within the community. This experience helped to cultivate open-mindedness when it came to conversations with partners.
Milestone asked attendees to use large pieces of paper to write down what they wanted to make the world see in relation to the groups in the Innovation Lab. By asking these questions, Milestone employees, partners and other attendees alike were able to think through solutions that would, inch-by-inch, get the Milestone community just a little closer to becoming a part of every surveillance installation worldwide.
Milestone has been moving towards this new vision since last year when they introduced the new community-based platform at MIPS in Scottsdale, Arizona. They also announced that Milestone would be updating their software on a more frequent basis, sending new updates out three times a year in addition to the bi-monthly device pack releases for supporting third-party cameras.
This year, Milestone introduced their newest product update, XProtect 2017 R1. Using its open platform technology, Milestone’s community can respond to needs for customized installations. XProtect 2017 is also more cost effective through a recording server performance of 3.1 Gigabit/S. This high performance level enables Milestone community partners to offer large solutions with a reduced number of servers or simply offer smaller servers. This contributes to savings in hardware costs and simplified infrastructure and significantly reduces the total cost of a Milestone solution.
In addition to the newest update, Milestone is also has a focus on cybersecurity issues [CDP1] . The XProtect 2017 R1 update includes several security enhancements for further improving cybersecurity, including two-step verification and greater control in granting user permissions for the Milestone Advanced VMS products. Two-step verification is an industry-first security feature for XProtect 2017 R1 that is designed to prevent unauthorized access to the VMS, even if a password is compromised, because a code from the user’s mobile phone is needed to complete the login.
Greg Willmarth, Milestone Director of eLearning and Performance, says that Milestone’s new vision directly affects his work as well.
“It’s a perfect fit because Milestone wants to make the world see, and the Learning and Performance team wants to help the community do,” Willmarth said. “‘Make the World See’ is all about a vision, which is great. You’ve got to have a vision, but the middlemen – and even the visionaries sometimes - need help getting to that endpoint.”
The virtual reality goggles, the Innovation Lab, eLearning and Performance portal and the company’s move to a community-based platform are all moves towards Milestone’s new vision of “Make the World See.” So, I’ll ask you just like Palmquist asked attendees at MIPS: What do you want the world to see?