Matt Steinfort wrote a good post last week on MVaaS. Some managers express caution on video surveillance because it is “big brother-ish”. Matt uses game-films as a counter to this. Football coaches rely on filming games and studying them later as a means to improve execution. Why shouldn’t businesses?
What does Mike Ditka have to do with this? He is my favorite football coach. That’s all.
Matt Steinfort had a post on the MVaaS blog site on the flow of venture capital into managed video companies. Two companies recently received funding, both of which are focused on software related to IP Cameras. VideoIQ raised $10M from Atlas Ventures, Matrix Partners, and Lehman Brothers Venture Capital - all well-known VCs. Milestone Systems raised $27M from Index Ventures, a European VC firm that neither Matt nor I are familiar with.
For a long time, Envysion struggled with how to describe what it did. Video Surveillance seemed completely wrong. It implied secuirty. It implied selling and installing systems. It implied being one of hundreds of providers a cusotmer could turn to. It implied an industry that is half a century old.
Envysion isn’t a secuirty company. Its customers look to Envysion’s service to help them with marketing and operations, along with secuirty. Envysion’s technology is really a telecom / Internet architecture, akin to a Softswitch architecture. So how in a nutshell should Envysion describe what it does?It would be nice if the “space” had a name. After many months of searching for and kicking around possible names, we settled on “Managed Video as a Service” or MVaaS. To help solidify this name, we launched a blog called “Managed Video as a Service”. Though the blog is only a couple months old, it is getting a lot of visits.
We are seeing evidence of MVaaS being accepted as an industry term. Video Protein has a white paper titled Managed Video as a Service on their web site. A new company–ByRemote–uses MVaaS on their web site. We have seen industry correspondence that uses MVaaS to describe the space.
We see this as important in the evolution of Envysion, as it creates an awareness and understanding of the role Envysion and others are playing in developing enterprise video services. As the space get defined, industry forum can be establised and standards bodies can form. Investors also have a shorthand way of describing companies who are involved in this exciting and fast growing area.
Joe Panettieri writes MSP Mentor blog. The blog is a good source for ideas and information about managed services. Below is a reprint of a February 6th post on a managed services application that is closely related to managed video surveillance. Many of Envysion’s customers are retail brands; some have asked about the feasibility of using Envysion’s service as a platform for digital signage, which is what sparked my interest in this area. Here is Joe’s post:
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During a recent stop at Dunkin’ Donuts (my daily coffee run), I noticed new digital signage promoting local businesses and special offers for coffee. It dawned on me that digital signage is a great opportunity for managed service providers. Sure, you can sell Plasma TVs and large LCD screens to businesses, but the real money is in monthly content management services for those screens.
Skeptical? Consider this piece of news from BroadSign International Inc., which specializes in hosted software for digital signage networks.
BroadSign has launched a managed services platform to help digital signage network operators deploy and run their networks with minimal staff and maximum efficiency.
In a prepared statement, BroadSign Executive VP David Womeldorf said: “Our research shows that the digital signage industry is moving towards outsourcing network maintenance and other technical jobs, so the Managed Services is our answer to this clearly expressed need.”
BroadSign’s managed servcie platform covers such items as:
- Scheduling Services
- Network Monitoring Service
- BroadSign Operating System Services
- Dynamic Content Services
For managed service providers serving retail customers, digital signage represents a multitude of opportunities. For instance, MSPs can design and deploy digital signage systems that complement managed video surveillance systems, emerging point of sale solutions, and so on.
Last week, I reprinted a post from Joe Panetteri from his MSPmentor blog. Joe published a follow-up post on January, 22nd, which I reprinted below.
Back in December, I blogged a bit about video surveillance as a managed service, and the rise of Managed Video Service Providers. Readers sent me plenty of emails and questions about both posts. But it wasn’t until last week, when I spoke with Envysion CEO Matt Steinfort, that I began to realize some of the new video opportunities awaiting managed service providers.
At first glance, most people think video surveillance is nothing more than traffic cameras mounted at intersections or video cameras monitoring retail cash registers. That’s only part of the story. The real opportunity for managed service providers is to marry video surveillance with business intelligence, point of sale, customer relationship management and other applications.
Here’s one powerful concept: A video surveillance managed service married to point of sale cash registers and credit card systems. In this scenario, your customers (for instance, a retail chain) could check the POS system for specific transactions. The video system, in turn, would automatically display a video clip associated with the POS transaction. This would allow merchants to spot fraudulent or questionable transactions, cashier errors, etc. This approach would also allow merchants to monitor customer lines, the quality of customer service during specific employee shifts, and so forth.
The video system could also be designed to monitor specific events. For instance, every time the door to a retail store opens, the video system would automatically create a record of the event. Rather than searching through hours of endless video, retailers could quickly review specific events based on time of day and other parameters.
Sure, much of this technology is common in high-end retailer chains that have deep IT budgets. But now, managed service providers and aggressive startups are bringing this video surveillance technology to the masses.
Which brings me back to my conversation with Steinfort from Envysion. Granted, he’s in the business of selling video applications. But in this case, he really doesn’t have to do any selling. When he demonstrated Envysion’s product to me over the Web last week, I immediately understood the true power — and potential — of managed video surveillance.
No, I’m not endorsing Envysion’s product (I haven’t spoken to the company’s customers nor have I tested Envysion on my own). However, it’s safe to say Steinfort has found a hot market niche for MSPs. And this is more than a retail solution. Higher education, state and local government, financial services, and plenty of other verticals are embracing video surveillance.
A case in point: Hundreds of cities across the globe are rolling out public WiFi networks. This municipal broadband movement, documented by MuniWireless.com, has hit a few bumps because cities needed to cost-justify WiFi, mesh, fiber and other network investments. In many cases, video surveillance has emerged as the killer application that allows municipalities to move forward with wireless broadband projects.
Joe, I hope you have a chance to try our product. I think you will agree it is truly a commercial-grade software-as-a-service application that is changing the meaning of video surveillance. I’d welcome feedback from you on the service/product.
Matt Steinfort, CEO of Envysion, sent me a post from Joe Panetteri. He posted it on the MSPmentor blog on January 10th, 2008. ”The independent voice for managed services providers” is the tag-line for the blog. Employees of Zayo Managed Services–you might want to add this to your favorites list. If you are a managed services provider and want to explore a partnering relationship with the most advanced hosted/IP/software-as-a-service solution in the video surveillance industry, please contact Matt Steinfort at Envysion. Below is a reprint of Joe’s post.
Last fall I predicted that video surveillance would emerge as a hot managed service in 2008. Two pieces of anecdotal information are now backing up my prediction.
When we publish the MSPmentor 100 — a listing of the top 100 MSPs — on January 28, you’ll see data indicating rapidly growing interest in managed video surveillance services. This trend became clear to me back in October. Now, peer bloggers are write about the rise of managed video surveillance. Smith on VoIP, one of my favorite blogs about IP and unified communications, offers the following perspective:
Like VoIP, IP surveillance is rapidly turning the traditional surveillance technologies on it’s ear. Legacy equipment manufacturers and VAR’s are quickly learning that the move to IP based solutions is inevitable. The same joys of IP based voice communications are realized with IP based surveillance. Lower TCO, increased scalability, more/better access to the technology and of course more functionality. As I have stated before, the parallels between the current surveillance marketplace and the voice marketplace are strikingly similar.
You can read Smith’s complete perspective here. And be sure to check back January 28 for additional trends culled from our MSPmentor 100 research survey.
Well, that is an exaggeration. A big one actually. It is the core, nonetheless, of what Envysion is all about. Fast forward 10 years from now and you will be watched a lot.
I am passionate about bandwidth. I am also enamored with applications that run over bandwidth networks. Video is doing more for the health and wealth of bandwidth networks than everything else combined. When telecom and Internet pundits think of video, they think of YouTube and Akamai. That is, they think of how video is being watched over the Internet and how content distribution networks (or CDNs) handle the distribution of video.
Though also video, Envysion’s premise is different from Akamai or Youtube. Cameras are going up everywhere: hospitals, airports, street corners, restaurants, banks, sporting venues, homes, hotels, and lots more places. Even within the bandwidth industry, think of everywhere cameras are being placed: colocation facilities, wireless towers, regen/opamp sites, switching nodes and NOC facilities. Moreover, cameras are getting more robust. Most new ones being deployed are color. Frames per second are higher and increasingly, cameras are IP and/or wireless.
Until very recently, video surveillance referred to static and isolated systems. Video was recorded 24×7 onto a recorder which resided onsite in a closet. If someone wanted access to the video, they would need to be physically at the site and know how to work the system. It was used infrequently. If a bad guy did a bad thing, perhaps the video system captured it.
Now along comes the Internet. Equally important for video surveillance, an ample supply of cost-effective bandwidth is increasingly available. What happens when you combine the Internet, ample bandwidth and cameras everywhere? This is the playground where Envysion is hanging out.
