My journey in low-voltage technologies did not begin with security. Long before I sold my first Wiegand reader,  I was an integrator. First Audio/Video, then Networks, then Telephony and soon after, Security. One common attribute in these industries is that the “next big thing” has always been on the horizon. As my career has progressed, I have noticed patterns and cycles and will often proclaim, “I have seen this before,” then deliver my valiant prediction. Do this enough and our friends “Dunning” and “Krueger” are sure to find you. Not me! I knew how cloud would take hold in security. I knew how integrators could go to market with cloud. I left the traditional VMS product I was selling and embarked on a seven-year mission to bring cloud to this industry.

I did not just miss the bullseye. I missed the target completely.

The Cloud Journey is Not Universal

I began my cloud journey as a full-fledged luddite. As the ad-hoc IT manager with plenty else to do, I was no early adopter. In fact, the mere mention of moving my trusty Exchange server into Microsoft’s invisible “network rack in the sky” made me angry. ‘Pay a subscription? Give Microsoft control of our email data? Get lost!” It was 2012, and IT professionals in my circle were having discussions like, “What does cloud mean, really?” “What is your cloud strategy?” and my favorite, “Will we all be replaced because of cloud?” (Side note: I also heard this about computers, and now AI. Color me skeptical.)

A combination of multiple FBI Virus outbreaks, server upgrades and emergency trips back to the office after hours opened my heart to considering cloud. I quickly became a cloud supporter, a devout supporter. It made our IT ecosystem better. It was more reliable; updates were automated; less hardware and less cost. It was actually cheaper.

Telephone systems were quick to follow. The once taboo idea of hosting the PBX changed in a blink. One week we went from replacing unreliable, hosted solutions with IP PBX solutions to the next week’s customers declining any offer to install new PBX hardware. Who could blame them? For $35 a month per user, they could get every unified communication feature, a new handset with advanced replacement coverage, and spend almost $0 upfront. From the same vendors that also built the PBX hardware that would have cost six figures to deliver the same in a physical PBX.

In the next few years, PBX solutions went from a specialist solution that was the central point (we thought) of safety, security, and the primary path of communication for customers, to just another service provided by your IT Managed Services Provider. Something veterans of that industry once thought impossible.  Sound familiar? Witnessing how cloud changed these industries gave me the foresight to navigate the future of the security industry. Or so I thought.

I Missed the Obvious with ACaaS

Video was my primary focus, as I was just a couple of years into the journey. I was already starting to realize that some of my past cloud experience wasn't translating well in the security industry. Video was bandwidth-hungry, and cameras were becoming more advanced and higher resolution, making the challenge even tougher. The cost of recording and processing in the cloud was real. As a Gateway-based solution, we also didn't offer the same upfront cost savings with reduced hardware.

VSaaS was not the revolution we had been promised, and the enthusiasm was waning quickly. We started searching the IT industry for buzzwords like “immutable Infrastructure” and “resiliency” as leverage to help us build momentum. I even created 30-plus slides for our Public Cloud provider, as if that made our product more valuable. I am still embarrassed and apologize to my many victims for making you sit through that.

Then the argument devolved into negative messaging as VSaaS products widely struggled for traction. Integrators were now being greeted with “You just don’t get it,” “This will destroy your business later if you don’t adopt it now,” and the one that became my personal trigger: “Sell managed services. Go figure it out.” I would love to write an article about that one.

Lost in the flash of high-resolution video and analytic bounding boxes was the fact that access control as a solution had almost none of these drawbacks. ACaaS was affordable, light on bandwidth, and, most of all, offered an opportunity to finally rid the landscape of archaic interfaces that were hard to learn and often left untouched for months or years at a time. Little did I know, a pandemic was about to change everything for us. 

Necessity Drives Innovation

Launching a new product during a pandemic was an interesting experience. I was covering not just the Midwest, but nearly a third of the country as I helped to get our new product off the ground. I loved visiting partners and building relationships. Video calls weren't my preferred method compared to in-person, but this new world at least let me cover lots of ground. And while some regions were very dormant in the spring of 2020, my favorite vacation spot was busier than ever. One morning I received a call from a partner in Myrtle Beach:

“Josh, your video stuff is interesting, but when will the access control be ready?”

The urgency was real. This partner was the primary technology vendor to many businesses that serviced tourists in the Grand Strand area.  The rules around occupancy were changing frequently, and often required changes to schedules, access levels, and even a new trend of integrating with fever detection solutions.  Or whatever it’s called; worrying about fevers was short-lived.

This placed integrators in a tough spot. Many traditional Access Control solutions in place weren't easily managed remotely or easily changed locally by the end user. The case of frequent schedule changes due to a pandemic was, of course, never considered and showed the need for a better experience and certainly the need for managing at scale.

I was working for one of the most well-known groups of founders in video surveillance. My first order of business was access control. Our most frequent feature request was HID Mercury support.

This was the moment that we realized the potential.

Customer Experience > Buzz Words

Cloud access control did not succeed because it was cloud. It succeeded because the way organizations interacted with access control changed. Before the pandemic, many access control systems were configured once and rarely touched again. Administrators added a cardholder, modified a schedule, ran a report, and then moved on with their day. Ease of use was nice to have, but not the deciding factor.

That changed quickly.

Organizations suddenly needed to manage schedules across multiple locations, adjust access permissions as policies evolved, support remote administrators, and integrate with new technologies at a pace that traditional deployment models were not designed to accommodate. Access control was no longer just a security system. It had become an operational system.

Cloud-based platforms were uniquely positioned for this shift. Not because they eliminated on-premises deployments, but because they simplified management, accelerated deployment, and made systems more accessible to the people who actually needed to use them. The real “investors” are the end users and integrators who fund this industry.

Conclusion: The Quiet Revolution

Looking back, I don't believe cloud access control was the revolution many of us predicted. No dramatic moment saw on-premises systems disappear. In fact, many organizations still have valid reasons to deploy and maintain them today.

Cloud access control just quietly became accepted. It delivered a better experience for integrators and end users. And while the debate around cloud versus on-prem continues, the more interesting outcome may be that access control itself evolved from an occasionally managed system into part of an organization's daily operations.

For a technology that was once marketed as a revolution, that may be its greatest success.