Featured Stories

RSS

Steady and rapid growth in the dealer program market, like the kind Security Networks, SDM’s 2012 Dealer of the Year Honoree, has had in recent years requires more than a good marketing program or exciting services. Security Networks, West Palm Beach, Fla., prides itself on an average of 40 percent growth year-over-year for the past eight years, its president, Richard Perry, tells SDM.

Talk to a Protection 1 employee and there is a palpable energy that radiates outward about their job, the company and the customer. Chicago-based Protection 1, has always contained a deep-rooted love for the customer. But while employees embraced the concept, the execution was missing, as Protection 1 experienced declining growth for seven consecutive years.

There are a variety of storage types available, from analog DVRs to appliances to on-board storage at the edge to cloud-based solutions. Even tape is making a comeback. Yes, you read that right.

Addressable fire alarm systems would appear to be tailor-made for the K-12 educational market — and many schools already have adopted the technology, simplifying maintenance and providing more detailed information in the event that the local fire department must be called in. Yet, budget issues have prevented some schools from installing addressable fire systems and have prevented some schools with older addressable systems from obtaining the latest generation of the fire alarm technology.

Jim Corbett, United Alarm, Brookfield, Conn., is warmly called the “fastest panel programmer in the East” by NAPCO Security Technologies Inc., Amityville, N.Y. He can program panels like nobody’s business, having plenty of practice since he has been at it since 1974.

RFI Communications & Security Systems (RFI), San Jose, Calif., is not beginning to learn IT’s lingo, trying to harness the network or ramping up its comfort level with IT. The company already has implemented cloud-based solutions that other companies are just now diving into.

In systems integrator circles, Convergint Technologies is a company that people admire. Homegrown by Greg Lernihan, president and co-founder, and Dan Moceri, CEO and co-founder, Convergint was born of a strategic plan that centered on a core platform of values and beliefs.

A TV set is not a monitor, but it can certainly function as one, especially if it has an HDMI connection. Price points for flat-screen TVs have swiftly decreased in recent years, and continue to fall. It can be a big decision — choosing to use a cheaper consumer computer monitor or TV or pay more for a commercial monitor for security applications

While access control likely trails only video on the excitement and energy scale when it comes to products within the security industry, two components of that segment — entry controls and intercoms — most likely rank very low, if at all.

I’m fairly confident that anyone reading this column already knows what an HDMI cable is and what it’s designed to do. However, just like a truck morphing into a giant super-cool robot, there are multitudes of complexities to the HDMI system lurking beneath that seemingly simple PVC-jacketed exterior.