The 'official' ISC round-up

As promised, here are the rest of my adventures in Vegas.

*Proximex Surveillint 3.0 won the New Product Showcase in the convergence category. I spent time chatting with Al Liebel and Diane M.Z. Robinette about the company and the product. What I like best is that it guides security personnel through your company's policies if there is a situation that needs extra attention. Al said the command-and-control software takes "people out of the process as much as possible." In my opinion, I think it empowers employees to make decisions by providing them with the data they need to effectively do their jobs.

*I caught up with two ex-Cisco workers. Bob Beliles, now vice president of Enterprise Business Development for Hirsch Electronics, said the company will be taking a more aggressive stance in the market and noted that identity initiatives — FIPS 201, HSPD-12 — will have a trickle down effect, driving business in the corporate space.
I caught up with Mark Kolar, who with Beliles was integral in building Cisco's physical security business, over at his new company Agent Vi, where he serves at vice president of Channel Programs for the Americas. Kolar's enthusiasm regarding Agent's edge analytics is infectious. He and Rob Hile, vice president of business development for integration partner Adesta, told me about Agent's new "3-for-free" promo, which allows businesses to deploy any three of the company's analytics applications through it or its channel partners on up to three IP cameras for as long as 90 days. After the trial, companies that order more Agent Vi analytics for at least 10 cameras can keep the initial three free to change for the duration of the license. Pretty cool, huh?

*Ionit Technologies announced that it has completed the installation of its DVRs at 6,200 Walgreens facilities and distribution centers nationwide. Jim Talbot, CEO and founder of Ionit, said this is "a lot more than a DVR." Rather, it is a data collection system. I'm also hoping to catch up with Ken Amos, director of loss prevention for Walgreen's, this week.

*I sat down with Steve Walin, chairman and CEO at GVI Security/Samsung Electronics, and he was happy to report that the company is back in the black after some dismal financial and industry results. Now, GVI has experienced four quarters of profitability and Walin said that signifies a financial turnaround. GVI also launched its first line of IP products and annouced a line of $1.5 million in funding from Samsung to increase its market share. The goal is to "double our market share in three years," he said. It is currently marked at 2 percent in the Americas.

*As for the nightlife, it was plentiful as always. GE Security held a pretty neat party at Tao in the Venetian, so did Dedicated Micros the evening before. ADI held its annual customer bash at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay with a band that played some cool Pink Floyd covers. Pelco had its party on Thursday night as well, but as with prior years I was left without a ticket. I did hear it was a good time from Pelco's CEO Dean Meyers — with two remaining members of Creedence Clearwater Revival taking the stage. As with any event in Vegas, these things are tough to get into. I found myself waiting behind a velvet rope and a bouncer to get in at a majority of them because they hit capacity early.

Meyer's in, McDonald's out

A few months back I reported on a rumor that Dean Meyer was going to take over leadership of Pelco from Dave McDonald. That didn't "officially" happen as soon as I thought it would (Meyer was appointed to COO of Pelco, reporting to McDonald instead.)

But yesterday, the first rumor became official. Meyer is the new president and CEO of the company and McDonald will now serve as chairman of the board.

From the press release:
Meyer is responsible not only for continuing the transition and organizational refocus as a result of the recent Schneider Electric merger, but also for ensuring that the true business and value-creation opportunities are realized.

“I am excited about the challenges of this opportunity,” Meyer says. “Although it’s important to note that obviously we are part of a big corporate company with the Schneider merger, I also think it is equally important to protect those things that have made Pelco so successful in its own right – namely the customer service model, the community outreach, the employee empowerment. So I am very sensitized to the blend of shareholder accountability and the entrepreneurial core values of Pelco.”

Meyer began his professional career with Texas Instruments, where he spent 11 years in manufacturing, production control, material planning and assembly. In 1993, he joined Control Systems International, which would eventually be acquired by TAC and Schneider Electric. With TAC Americas, Meyer was responsible for a number of operations areas, including manufacturing, purchasing, sales, engineering and marketing. For the last seven years, he was president of TAC Americas and most recently he has served as Pelco COO since November 2007.

Putting a rumor to rest

The interface I create my blog with has been acting funny all this week — so I apologize about the infrequent postings.

Anyway, yesterday the news about Dean Meyer joining Pelco became final. Dean was named COO of Pelco and will report to David McDonald. (My sources originally told me McDonald was stepping down. Where were they getting their information?)
Dean spent seven years as president of TAC Americas, where he grew the business five fold to its current $500 million annual volume level.

So who is replacing Dean? That would be Jeff Drees, who is now president of TAC in the Americas region and executive vice president of TAC worldwide. Drees joined TAC in 2001 and has served in the Partner, Energy Solutions and Systems Integration divisions.

Rumors and replacements

Two companies are making changes to executive management. One is official, and one isn't — yet.
I'll start with the rumor first. TAC president Dean Meyer is rumored to be taking over the reins of Pelco from David McDonald, president, CEO and part-owner of the video surveillance company. Schneider Electric finalized its $1.54-billion
purchase of Pelco last week. My sources say an announcement regarding changes at TAC/Pelco is coming soon, but the company is not commenting on any rumors at this point. I'll post additional information as it is made available.
Secondly, Bosch Security officially appointed Chris Gerace president of Bosch Security Systems in North America. Gerace has served as acting president since the company's former leader Shamus Hurley stepped down in July 2007. Hurley left Bosch for a post as chief executive officer and president of Kinetico, a manufacturer of water treatment systems.

Catching up

I know I haven't been posting every day like I normally do but I do have some good excuses. First of, we are in the final drive of putting our November issue together and secondly, my computer crashed and I lost all of my critical data for that same November issue. Although I think these excuses are valid, my co-workers don't seem to be backing me up.
Anyway, here's what has been going on this week.

Schneider Electric finalized its purchase of Pelco. A lot of people are curious as to how Pelco will fit into TAC's/Schneider's line up and what, if any changes, will be seen from the Pelco side of the business.

Analytics is a big buzz word today in the security marketplace. And this week Cernium Corp. announced a cool project. The University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus in Minneapolis deployed Cernim's video analytics system that the school will use to indicate potential criminal activity such as lurking people or potential accidents during icy winter weather.
“Rather than wait and react to emergency situations as they occur, Cernium’s intelligent video technology allows campus security officials the ability of real-time response,” said Bob Janoski, central security director for the University of Minnesota. “It’s a proactive approach that enhances the security of our community.”
And makes the reaction to a slip-and-fall that much quicker.

The Government Accountability Office released some interesting reports yesterday (Scroll down to Oct. 16 on the web page.) They include a report on the how DHS has made progress in securing the commerical aviation system, but key challenges remain (Hmmm ... I think they've published a version of this report before.) The line-up also includes a progress report on the SAFE Port Act and the challenges in transportation security — again, progress has been made but, guess what, there is still work to be done. Jokes aside, the reports are an interesting and objective look at government run security programs that receive a good beating in the mainstream media each day.

Biometric provider CrossMatch Technologies announced today that it will proceed with its IPO. The offering will include 8,333,334 primary shares and 1,086,956 secondary shares. Proceeds will be used to fund acquisitions, provide working capital and other general corporate purposes including repayment of approximately $4M of outstanding indebtedness.

Over here in New England, we are acutely aware that the Red Sox are having some trouble agaisnt the Indians, but in case you missed it, the New England Patriots are still undefeated.