Sony widens IP sureillance camera market with ISV launch
Electronics giant establishes partnerships to allow its products to integrate with other vendors' systems
Sony has opened up the market for resellers of its IP surveillance cameras through the launch of an ISV partner programme.
Previously, Sony IP cameras could only integrate with Realshot Manager, Sony’s own management software. Now the vendor has 10 ISV partners on board that have developed software to allow Sony cameras to integrate with other vendors’ systems.
Simon Nash, European product manager at Sony network video monitoring, told CRN: “We opened our doors to ISVs in July. We have now formalised the relationships we established with the introduction of the ISV programme. We have 10 ISVs on board and our door is open to more.”
Simon Harris, research director at IMS Research, said: “In the UK the video surveillance market is still largely made up of analogue CCTV cameras. However, across Europe the IP camera market saw a 40 per cent growth last year as more people migrated over to IP cameras. We predict an average of 37.4 per cent growth every year for the next five years.
Nash said: “This growth is why broadening the number of systems that Sony cameras can integrate with has been important. It has opened up a significant new area of the market to VARs.”
However, rival video IP surveillance vendor Axis Communications claimed its products had been based on open standards for several years.
Steve Gorski, managing director of Axis, told CRN: “We launched our Application Developer Partner [ADP] Programme in 2001 and today have more than 400 ADPs worldwide, with 30 in the UK. Proprietary technology is a challenge, but to grow firms need to have open standards.”