LAS VEGAS – A visit to the ISC West show floor often involves old friends, colleagues and familiar faces; however, each year there is a substantial handful of companies making their debuts on the Las Vegas show floor as well. While some of these newer products and companies may be overlooked at first glance on the show floor, SecurityInfoWatch has made it an annual show daily feature to take a closer look at a first-time exhibitor.
This year, I had a chance to meet with Paul DiPeso, executive VP of Feenics, Ottawa, Can. DiPeso came to Feenics in Jan. 2014 after a nearly 20-year distinguished security sales career with Tyco, UTC and Honeywell. The company's flagship product, Keep by Feenics, is an on-premise or cloud-hosted integrated access control and security management solution. As a hosted platform, Keep reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) by eliminating servers and appliances while monitoring real-time events and pushing alarm or manual notifications out via email or SMS; locking down doors with a single click; and creating badges.
Feenics is demonstrating the product in Booth #29093. Here's what DiPeso had to say:
SIW: As a first-time exhibitor to ISC West, what are you expecting from having a presence on the show floor and why exhibit now?
Dipeso: Feenics is a relative newcomer to the security industry, established in 2010. We unveiled the flagship Keep™, cloud-hosted, security management and access control platform to the security market in January 2014. Keep was design-built by our owner, Sam Shalaby MBA and Chief Executive Officer of Feenics, who leads the management team at our Ottawa-based headquarters. Shalaby was the former Owner and President of Future Security Controls (FSC), Ottawa, one of Canada’s premier integration and managed services providers, a company he owned and operated for 34 years, until the acquisition of FSC by Convergint Technologies LLC in December 2013. Shalaby is currently leading the charge to further establish our systems integrator and value-added reseller (VAR) program, which is progressing quite well.
We’ve always been involved in ISC West since our founding, partnering with leading industry manufacturers such as HID Global. This year, however, we want to really play up the momentum we have going with our VAR program, stepping out so to speak at our own booth, 29093, for the first time.
What are your thoughts as far as the show itself and what it brings to the security industry?
ISC West is a critical show for manufacturers, systems integrators and end users. It’s where technologies are introduced and you can witness the continued evolution of the security industry. That’s where we fit in as well with our solution that’s open, scalable and vendor-agnostic, three important considerations for any security product today. The continued move to cloud-hosted security management platforms such as Keep indicate that the security industry needs flexibility in its deployments and will continue to migrate to Software as a Service solutions that can fit a wide range of end-user needs and different vertical markets. The Keep solution addresses the future today, with unlimited scalability and the flexibility to deploy the system on premise or off-site, offering the end user total cost of ownership savings. End users don’t want to be trapped when making a capital investment in their security. As their organization adopts cloud-based programs, they need that ability to move their security to the cloud without a rip and replacement. That’s one of our strengths.
What are your goals for ISC West and what do you hope to accomplish?
We are building our VAR program and want to continue to introduce and educate systems integrators and VARs about the value proposition we bring to the market. The Keep solution is different than any other SMS platform on the market, first with the ability to deploy on site or off-site. Second, the modular design scales linearly, from single sites to enterprise environments. In addition, Keep monitors real-time events with no delay, enabling lockdowns immediately with a single click. Keep also uses non-proprietary field hardware by leading industry manufacturers Mercury Security and HID Global. Finally, Keep let’s systems integrators earn valuable recurring monthly revenue with hosted and managed security and other value-added services.
What’s new to the Keep solution that you’ll be showcasing at ISC West?
We recently updated Keep software to bring new features and functionality to the program. Our latest version features even faster, real-time alarm management, increased usability and enhanced scalability. Alarm or manual notifications are pushed out immediately via email or SMS text message. Doors are locked down with a single click and badges can be created easily online. Keep’s User Interface is accessible anywhere there is an internet connection. The latest version also interfaces seamlessly with wireless lock leaders ASSA ABLOY and Allegion. We’ll also be highlighting our new Keep Mobile Apps – including Keep Notified, Keep Personnel and Keep Monitor to allow real-time events and robust remote security administration management, including enrollment of new card holders, removing card holders, modifying access levels and providing other immediate scheduling and operations changes enterprise wide. Finally, we continue to expand our video integrations with other leading providers.
Paul Rothman is Editor in Chief of Security Dealer & Integrator (SD&I) magazine (www.secdealer.com).
