Hirsch Electronics yesterday announced that Robert Beliles, co-founder of Cisco's physical security initiative and business unit, has been appointed vice president, enterprise business development. Beliles brings to Hirsch more than 11 years of product marketing and product management experience with Cisco. He is also the co-author of several networked physical security system patents-pending.
“The opportunities and benefits of networked physical security are enormous", observed Mr. Beliles. "I was very impressed by Hirsch's early leadership in adopting technologies, such as XML and encrypted end-point communications, which demonstrates that Hirsch is at the forefront of this next wave of convergence. As a result, customers not only benefit from products from a proven security vendor, they also enjoy the ability to build security systems with advanced technologies today."
And:
Agent Vi last week announced the appointment of Mark Kolar to the newly created position of vice president, channels for the Americas. He will build, lead and direct the company’s channel partner efforts and related programs in North, Central and South America.
Kolar joins Agent Vi from Cisco Systems where he served as director of physical security for worldwide channels. While at Cisco, Kolar founded and initially developed Cisco’s physical security go-to-market and acquisition strategies, and most recently designed, launched, and enhanced Cisco’s worldwide physical security reseller and channel program. His efforts included the implementation of processes to control and scale the deployment of Cisco's physical security solutions as well as the management of several large systems integrator relationships. Kolar brings 23 years of technology, business and networked physical security experience to Agent Vi.
There's obviously been a lot of talk about IT companies moving into the physical security space (IBM, EMC, Microsoft) but Cisco seems to have been the leader in this pack since its purchase of BroadWare last year. I wonder what this management shake-up means for the company's initiative in this space. Bob and Mark certainly have a lot of experience beneath their belts and I'm sure its a shame to lose that. But Cisco does still have Bill Stuntz, the former leader of BroadWare, helming the ship over there.
Anyone have any thoughts? How any of you been working with Cisco on any projects? How about installations — any out there?
