You can track all of our coverage of ASIS 2010 on our dedicated ASIS tradeshow page, but here's a quick gallery of images I captured on my camera today to paint a little picture of this great industry tradeshow.
Mark VanDover started the morning with a product launch of the American Dynamics Victor VMS. It's especially useful for customers with existing investments in Intellex DVRs and VideoEdge NVR recording systems.
I made it by the Stanley booth early in the day. The "oasis" themed booth featured a tiki bar styling (no alcohol, though, you lushes!), and I had a chance to speak with Tony Byerly about alarm verification, Sonitrol's new panels, the company's eServices and the "scoreboard" they provide to commercial customers. One thing that hit me: Byerly estimates that roughly one-fourth of the company's monitoring customers use some sort of verification technology (something more than "enhanced call verification"). The Sonitrol division, of course, keeps that number high, but he's also seeing an uptake in video verification.
Over at Honeywell's booth, I had the chance to meet the new president of Honeywell Security & Communications -- JoAnna Sohovich. The quick summary is that she's new to the security space but no stranger to Honeywell, and her background in environmental controls has her thinking deeply about integration within Honeywell's product lines and especially about what that can mean for the residential customers. Afterwards, I bounced over to this kiosk picture above where Honeywell was showcasing their new SDK offering, which was shown as a way to easily link systems like ProWatch, Notifier and the MAXPRO VMS. If you want an inside tour of Honeywell's possibilities for networking and integration among platforms, ask about Tridium, a company they acquired in 2005, and whose Niagara technology serves as a communications framework for integrating across different protocols.
For lunch, I attended a seminar held by HID Global President and CEO Denis Hebert (pictured above). The seminar was looking at the future of identity management and credentials. More on this later -- I simply don't have the time right now to go into the depth on this seminar that it deserves.
After the show floor closed, I made my way over to catch up with ADT Commercial President John Kenning and ADT Worldwide President Naren Gursahaney. They were hosting a reception for global accounts atop the Reunion Tower (the big tower with the ball-shaped restaurant structure atop it), and the side benefit was this gorgeous view of Dallas, Texas.
This being the security industry, I think its perhaps appropriate to close with this somber photo of the Texas School Book Depository. This building in the center of the photo is the facility where Oswald was located when he shot President Kennedy in 1963. In the foreground, you can see Dealey Plaza and the "grassy knoll". It's a grim reminder of the importance of what you all do in this industry.
-Geoff Kohl, editor-in-chief, SecurityInfoWatch.com.
