Pelco is pulling back money that would have been used to fund its traditionally large booth space at the IFSEC tradeshow, a tradeshow held in Birmingham, England, and considered the largest for the UK security and fire detection market. Instead, Pelco president and CEO Dean Meyer said the company will be reinvesting that money in product offerings for 2009.
"Pelco did not come to this difficult decision lightly, but we feel that we can better serve and support our customers worldwide by realigning certain expenditures elsewhere," said Meyer in a statement. "Although we are spending less in some places – at IFSEC, for example – we are putting that investment to work in other areas that make more sense for our customers."
Pelco is, however, still planning to host its annual customer party at the same time as IFSEC in Birmingham, and it is "to be held at a venue near but not at IFSEC."
Meyer said the move would allow the California firm to invest in and unveil a full, end-to-end high definition (HD) surveillance offering. The range is said to include a broad variety of megapixel cameras, as well as new recording solutions that can use H.264 video compression and third-party data storage systems.
The European staff of Pelco, said however, that it was far from withdrawing support to its European customers.
"It remains important that we support our customers from around the world who travel to IFSEC," said Kevin Smith, Pelco's regional manager for the UK and Ireland.
Following Pelco's announcement that it was withdrawing from the 2009 IFSEC show, show promoters issued a press release stating that other large product manufacturers -- including Honeywell, Panasonic, Axis, Sony, HID and JVC -- were committed to the show. However, other fixtures, including large security products distributor Norbain, have said they also will not exhibit at the show.
