Yesterday I talked about a customer who told me he hated me becuase his video system did not do “that.”  The “that” is simply “this.”  The Envysion demo the customer saw at our trade show booth showed deep database level integration between Point of Sale data and video, with searchable functionality that would allow him to manage his business based on the metrics he manually tracks today.  His stand alone DVR video solution gave him volumes of video but no business insights and as such, was relegated to a pure surveillance function.

Migration was the next discussion; a simple swap of the DVR, connection to his point of sale system and his network and he is off to the business insight races.  Reuse the cameras, wiring and resell that DVR on eBay.  So the lessons learned for me many.  1) Our sales team needs to get in front of more customers to demonstrate what is possible, because seeing is believing.  2) Many customers are still early in the adoption curve for video and making tactical buying decisions.  3) Hearing “I hate you” can be music to your ears.

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Have you heard?  Food prices have been increasing.

If this is news to you, to quote ’The Turk’ Sollozzo from The Godfather, ”Te salute, Don Corleone.”

If you are like everyone else, you’ve felt the increases in your wallet.  Now imagine the impact to a restaurant owner!

MVaaS providers have achieved initial success in several key markets.  Among those has been the restaurant space.  Derek Gale, Associate Editor of Restaurants and Institutions, provides insight in an article about the burgeoning video business in restaurants.

The main takeaways from Mr. Gale’s article:

1. The systems can pay for themselves in less than a year in theft and fraud avoidance;
2. The systems can be used to deliver effective and efficient service to enhance customer satisfaction.

These conclusions are consistent with the sentiments of our customers.  MVaaS should be viewed as a value creator, not a line item expense.  MVaaS, when properly utilized, is a valuable tool to combat loss and ensure customer satsifaction.

I view conferences such as the NRF LP show as a great opportunity to connect with four distinct groups within the MVaaS ecosystem.  These gatherings give me the opportunity to talk with potential customers, active and potential channel partners, competitors, and other ecosystem participants.

The most obvious of these groups are the potential customers.  The National Retail Federation LP show brings a wide spectrum of retailers, from big box retailers to specialty retailers to restaurants to convenience stores.  We had some significant interest from several national restaurant chains, an office supply superstore concept (brought to us by one of the new potential channel partners I met), several convenience stores, and a host of others.

Several common themes resonated with the potential customers we met.  First, the power of tying other business systems (mainly POS in this context) to video was extremely appealing.  Several video vendors at the show were displaying some form of this integration.  Second, the ease of use and the ease of management by IT were big differentiators – in today’s market both the LP and IT groups are under cost pressure that limits their ability to grow their teams so anything that helps that is attractive.  The last major theme that resonated was one that even last year the customers weren’t tuned in to.

The final theme is one that both Rob Hagens and I have talked about extensively in prior posts – PCI compliance.  All of the customer prospects that we spoke with were very aware of PCI compliance and the efforts that their company had or was still putting into their own PCI compliance.  The idea of a PCI compliant video solution was a tremendous hit amongst the crowd.  I believe by next year’s show it will be absolute table stakes for any customer of any size that their video service be PCI compliant.

Fortunately, MVaaS providers are leading the way and will be there well ahead of traditional providers that will face both procedural and technical challenges in ensuring their network solutions don’t expose their customers to unwanted risks and jeopardize their customers’ own PCI compliance.

At a recent trade show, I was performing a demo for a prospective client.  Lurking in the background was a tall man with a deep scowl on his face.  I finished the demo and the big man approached.  “I hate you,” he said as he moved to the demo screen.  My first thought was, do I know this guy, did I cut him off in traffic, do I owe him money?

After introducing myself, I ask him why he hated me.  He said, “I just installed video surveillance in more than thirty stores and it doesn’t do that,” pointing to the screen.   Quick to compartmentalize my anger at my sales force for not being in front of this guy six months ago, I engaged him in a fact finding discussion.   Tomorrow I’ll share what “that” is… and how we are on the road to redemption.

In an every more connected world security threats seem to be continuously multiplying.  Every day there are reports of significant fraud and security breaches perpetrated.  These are not even all over the Internet.  If you ever paid for parking at Denver International Airport by credit card between about 2000 and 2006 your cardholder information could very well be in the hands of a thief right now.   So even if you never use the Internet, there is real risk out there.

However, in our ever more connected world there are new opportunities for protecting ourselves.  In fact, systems and devices can even protect themselves.  Here’s an example of how a digital camera actually sent photos of it’s thieves to the owner of the camera without the thieves even knowing about it.  The camera automatically uploaded photos to the owner’s Internet account when it came near an open WIFI access point.

Monday, I talked about network plug-and-play. Today, let’s explore how to get your IP camera to work with an MVaaS provider. To start with, you probably need to go hunting for someone with some FM skills. Why? Because there are not yet standards defined to allow any IP camera to communicate with any MVaaS provider.

Why would I want my IP camera to work with an MVaaS provider? There are several reasons. The first one is simple: youtube. Why is youtube successful? Very simply, it’s because video files are big, easily 1 megabyte/minute for low resolution (320×240). You can’t send a 5 minute video to a friend via email because the attachment is just too large. But, you can upload that video to a central site, and then send a link to your friend. There are probably 50 youtube clones out in the Internet today for just this reason.

What else can MVaaS do for my IP cameras? It can provide tools for sharing. It can provide an integration of your video with other business data such as Point of Sale events. It can persist (save) your video indefinitely. It can provide a high-volume, reliable distribution point for streaming your clip to others that is unaffected by your local Internet broadband capacity. It can provide an interface to video analytics services. The list is limited only by your imagination and wallet.

What kind of innovation would help customers use IP cameras with MVaaS? What types of standards would be helpful?

How about a dynamic configuration protocol designed for a wide area network? A protocol that would allow an IP camera to register itself with an MVaaS, exchange configuration information, and begin streaming video to the MVaaS remote storage. How could I use that if it was implemented across MVaaS and IP camera vendors? Simple: I could plug any IP camera in, anywhere in the Internet, and it would start inter-working with any MVaaS provider, automatically.

And most importantly, it would work without the need for any FM!

While I’m on the topic of sharing…The episode began as a nice family birthday celebration.  Cupcakes for everyone.  It ended in anger and sadness.

My youngest son, age 4 at the time, and true cupcake aficionado, had consumed his prize very quickly.  His older brother, no less a connoisseur, was delicately enjoying his treat.  You may know where this is going…

With swift precision, my youngest son swiped the remaining portion of his brother’s cupcake and quickly devoured it.  My wife and I witnessed the entire episode, but were powerless to make things right.  The damage was done.  One child was crying, the other scolded, and everyone was upset.

After a lengthy time-out, I asked the offender why he took his brother’s cupcake.  After taking a moment to contemplate, he offered his excuse.  “But I was sharing.”  After smiling (and being somewhat proud of his deftness), all I could say was “sharing is not always appropriate.”

When and how to share is of high importance to MVaaS providers (see related post by Darren Loher on Secure Sharing).  In an environment driven by “sharing” and “social networking” (exluding MLB, of course), business customers of video surveillance technologies rightly demand security for their content.  Business customers want total control over what content is shared.  And MVaaS providers must provide the solutions that enable sharing, as the customers prescribe, in an easy-to-use, secure and scaleable manner.

If you are a video provider who fails to deliver this, be prepared to share your customers with MVaaS providers who do.

Do you remember Kirk Gibson’s walk off home run in game one of the 1988 World Series?  The late Jack Buck’s famous radio call of the exciting moment was “I don’t believe what I just saw!”

Well, try finding the footage on YouTube.  Apparently YouTube does not have the “expressed written consent” from MLB.  If you want to view this moment, share it with your kids, pass on to them your love of America’s past-time, you’ll need to pay the toll to MLB.com.

Interesting marketing approach.

This reminds me of Rob Hagen’s excellent post on standards setting for IP based video.  While not directly parallel, what the situations do have in common are big organizations, using size and influence, trying to derive new revenue streams.

Don’t get me wrong, more power to them if they can pull it off.  And they have had some success in attracting subscribers to their subscription service.  However, my guess is that most people willing to pay are hardcore baseball geeks (not meant as a pejorative) interested in fresh content.  As for the casual fan interested in re-living 20 year-old highlights, I’d venture that revenue is low and irritation is high.  These are my memories.  Why don’t they share?

We’ve had a theme of interoperability standards and protocols going here for a week now and I thought I’d continue the trend.

Did you ever wonder why you can go to your local big box retailer, buy one of any number of cable or DSL routers, plug it in at home and it just works? And, more amazingly, you can plug just about any computer into the switch port of that router and volia, you can surf the Internet without configuring anything? Well, welcome to the world of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol or DHCP for short.

Did you know that this standard was published just 15 short years ago as RFC 1531 ?

Back in those days, you couldn’t hook just any computer to any router, nor any router to any network without a lot of hand-configuration and related FM (and I don’t mean a field manual).

In fact, back in those days, Dan Lynch formed a really useful set of conferences known as “Interop” that were used as field tests to demonstrate fundamental interoperability of various router and equipment vendors.

It’s a wonderful world these days now that all this network stuff just plugs-and-plays together.

If only it could be so for IP cameras…

If I want to setup a video surveillance network (on my LAN) with IP cameras and camera management software, I had better do some homework to insure the camera vendor works with the surveillance software. Chances are, it will probably work if you stick to name brands and especially if you buy the software and hardware from the same company.

What if I want my IP camera to work with an MVaaS provider ? Stay tuned tomorrow for that answer.

If you are unable to attend NRF, you can benefit from “virtually” being there by visiting their daily show blog:

http://lp.nrfblogs.com/

Today’s blog features John Hawthorne from Publix Supermarkets, Inc. In his post, John highlights his “Six P’s” to partnering with law enforcement:

• Preparation
• Presentation
• Persistence
• Patience
• Participation
• Politics

The first two “Ps” – Preparation and Presentation – are where Managed Video as a Service are invaluable. The ability to zero in on an incident, package and present it to law enforcement and to associate the video with Point of Sale systems can accelerate the crime investigation. MVaaS helps provide and package the evidence, saving valuable investigation time and facilitating a quick resolution to the crime. In situations where there are no available witnesses, MVaaS is the next best thing to being there.

If you do make it to NRF, be sure to visit Envysion’s booth (#1013) to see a demo of Envysion Video, which sets the standard for Managed Video as a Service.