Trends & Industry Issues

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“Look out honey, ‘cause I’m using technology.” — “Search and Destroy,” Iggy and the Stooges, 1973

Dispatch from Buffalo, N.Y.

 I travel extensively around the lower 48 and Canada performing training classes for our industry. As a result, I have taken hundreds of cab rides in the past seven years.

The security industry looks to the SDM 100 — a group of 100 of the largest security companies ranked by their recurring monthly revenue — as a wellspring of industry trends and operational best practices. So, which manufacturers and distributors are behind the SDM 100, supporting them with the products, solutions and services that have helped make them successful?

When it comes to access control cards and credentials it is difficult to have a discussion about technology without considering some of the seemingly contradictory trends in the marketplace. For example, the largest installed base of cards is proximity — a 20-year-old technology with known security issues. Yet in an industry that often seems to move at a glacial pace, the credential space is filled with some of the hottest buzzwords inside and out of the security industry, including Near Field Communications (NFC), Bluetooth, biometrics and even wearables such as the Apple Watch.

What is big data and how does it benefit you? If you are like many security integrators the subject of big data may barely be on your radar yet. However, looking to the future of the industry, it seems inevitable that as more and more devices become both smarter and more connected (think Internet of Things), the desire to do more than just sit on all of that information will prompt users to demand more from their security system, their integrator — and, increasingly, their data that may go way beyond the scope of “security” today.

 On June 25, 2015, two motions will be considered at the NFPA meeting in Chicago which will impact the security industry as well as its customers. The Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) issued the following information to explain the proposed NFPA revisions and how they could limit or eliminate private competition by listed central stations’ ability to provide remote station service. 

Apollo Global Management of New York will purchase both Protection 1, Romeo, Ill., listed at No. 6 on the SDM 100, and ASG Security, Beltsville, Md., ranked No. 10 on the SDM 100.

Demonstrating its commitment to customers in the Pacific Northwest, North American Video (NAV), Brick, N.J., a SDM Integrator of the Year award winner, opened a new office in Everett, Wash., which is centrally located within the state’s primary gaming area.

ASSA ABLOY, New Haven, Conn., announced that its manufacturing facility in its hometown headquarters received certification for Sustainable Manufacturing Practices from GreenCircle Certified, LLC.

Cypress Computer Systems Inc., Lapeer, Mich., and Security Solutions Inc., Cummings, Ga., announced that Security Solutions Inc. now represents Cypress in 25 Eastern states.