Security

Software’s Growing Influence on the Physical Security Business

Software has been a relatively minor contributor to overall growth in the Physical Security industry but its importance has gradually increased over the last 10 years and in the last two it is has become a major driver. The main application of software has been to provide an operating platform for video surveillance and access control systems. Major hardware companies and a number of specialists Video Management Software (VMS) suppliers have taken the biggest share of this business. VMS has been very much an internal affair and whilst in the last 5 years it has grown at a much higher rate than the video hardware market, today it still only accounts for 7% of the Video Surveillance product business. With time VMS has expanded its capability and now offers analytic services, but the longer-term solution requires artificial intelligence and this requires massive computing power to run Big Data Services, if it is going to provide […]

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Software has been a relatively minor contributor to overall growth in the Physical Security industry but its importance has gradually increased over the last 10 years and in the last two it is has become a major driver.

The main application of software has been to provide an operating platform for video surveillance and access control systems. Major hardware companies and a number of specialists Video Management Software (VMS) suppliers have taken the biggest share of this business. VMS has been very much an internal affair and whilst in the last 5 years it has grown at a much higher rate than the video hardware market, today it still only accounts for 7% of the Video Surveillance product business.

With time VMS has expanded its capability and now offers analytic services, but the longer-term solution requires artificial intelligence and this requires massive computing power to run Big Data Services, if it is going to provide a comprehensive IoT solution. In the meantime video surveillance and access control are being offered on the cloud by several companies with some coming up with unique analytic solutions.

Within the last five years there has been a growing need to integrate the 3 sectors of the physical security (Video, Access and Intruder) industry together with other Building Automation Services (BAS) and this has required new applications for software products. Software specialists from outside the physical security industry have entered this business.

Penetration of these software products has not lived up to the growth opportunities that were promised. The two major types of software packages are Physical Identity Access Management (PIAM) and Physical Security Information Management (PSIM), which is now often termed Converged Security and Information Management (CISM).

Physical Identity Access Management (PIAM) is a software product that welds together Physical Access with Identity Management and makes the system much more secure and delivers many other valuable features. Now that IP is becoming standard in Access Control it is relatively simple to link these services together. Most Fortune 500 companies will have installed PIAM systems.

The key benefit from PIAM solutions is operational cost reduction that can be delivered through this platform, providing a bridge between the disparate systems, without stripping out and starting again. However PIAM has yet to attract the mainstream physical access control market Although it is getting much exposure at this time.
PIAM suppliers include Quantum Secure, AlertEnterprise, Integid, Intellisoft, Idcube, Identiv, Right Crowd, and NetIQ.

Our research indicates that the market PIAM was worth $280 million in 2015 and we forecast this will rise to around $530 million by 2020 at a compound annual growth rate of 13.5%. North America secured around 40% and Europe 29%. The strongest vertical includes Airports, Banking Finance Services and Insurance (BFSI) and IT & Telecom buildings.

There has been a drive, particularly in the public sector, to create much more interoperability between all of their safety & security systems including fire detection, extinguishing, evacuation, mass notification, security and even environmental control on major building projects and Smart City and Transport projects. This has increased the need for integration software.

As IP technology impacted and advanced security systems and networks over the past few years, more and more sophisticated subsystems were installed and integrated together. As this trend continued in both scope and quantity, the ability to manage, integrate or operate the system as a whole became more and more difficult.

The magnitude of the issue, particularly for larger or diverse systems, has now resulted in a real need for efficient PSIM products to capture, analyze and utilize all of the outputs of the subsystems, along with a means to manage, maintain and efficiently operate the disparate systems as a whole system / security network.

We estimate the market for PSIM in 2015 at approximately $120m and it is currently growing at little more than 2% per annum. It is therefore a relatively small market with high initial cost that could be limiting its growth. It is also has a bias to being installed in major projects and this can make growth rather volatile. It would be difficult to assess ROI on many projects and at this stage the decision to install is likely to be based on risk analysis where failure to act quickly would have devastating consequences.

There are around 10 suppliers of PSIM software, of which the following 6 companies are most often quoted; CNL, Intergraph, Qognify(Nice), Tyco/Proxmex, VideoNext and Vidsys. These range from small specialist software companies to the leading GIS and Enterprise software producer Intergraph, which was acquired by Hexagon AB in July 2010.

The push to go for Smart Cities right across the globe could change the game for PSIM and take it into another league. However much of the security industry believe the principal of joining all the different services through a top-end software solution through bespoke software is proving to be fragile causing high maintenance and does not deliver all the intelligence that is available. Big Data and IoT could solve these problems and in the longer term looks to be a better proposition but its probably 2/3 years away from commercial acceptance.

Nevertheless it looks inevitable that the software in the physical security market will become more competitive as software specialists from outside the business further exploit the opportunities to seamlessly join up all of the technical services in buildings.

This article was been taken from Memoori’s Eighth edition of their Annual Report The Physical Security Business 2016 to 2021 and The Market for Building Performance Software 2016 – 2020.

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