the interview Growing the Milestone Community Two years have passed since Canon acquired Milestone Systems. detektor magazine met up with Kenneth H Pedersen, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Milestone to discuss the company’s new path and technology trends. ”The biggest trend on the market is definitely that the end users are now demanding a solution and we must help them create it”, he says. By Henrik Söderlund Kenneth H Pedersen, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Milestone. Danish Milestone Systems is the acknowledged global market leader in video management software. In 2014, it was acquired by Canon and this year, Milestone has been highlighting its Milestone Partner Community. Kenneth H Pedersen claims that Canon’s acquisition of Milestone has strengthened the company’s position in the market. ”Milestone is actually in the strongest position we have ever been in. Previously, we called ourselves “Milestone – the open platform company” but now we have gone further to articulate Milestone as “the open platform community”. Instead of Milestone being the central focus, we want to make sure that we embrace our community of integration partners, and the ecosystem of technology partners that surround them, even more to help push the market to the next level. That is our expectation and we are beginning to see the benefits of this new approach.” And technology-wise? “I think we are the first company in the industry to release three software versions in one year, and they are not just patches, there are actually three full new finished versions. We are not just investing in the community, but in our backbone – our video management software. Earlier this year we launched the biggest software release we have ever issued, with more new features and functions than ever seen in a Milestone release before.” How have things changed since you were acquired by Canon? “Not much actually. We are a standalone company in the Canon Group and we are still the Milesto- ne that you know from years back. However, we have experienced some very positive effects by being owned by Canon: financially we are much stronger than we were before, we now have very, very solid cash reserves and well-financed R&D plans. When we go into big projects, we see that the fact that we are not only Milestone, but also being backed up by the Canon Group helps us. And from a legal perspective, we have the support of Canon – for example when trolls come and claim that we have violated their patents in the US or anywhere else in the world.” from a European perspective we see really good growth all over the place. And then of course we have the US, which is the biggest market and where we also see very strong growth.” What about Asia? “I think Asia is a big future market for us because we did not hard-target the Asia-Pacific region until last year. We do have business there, but few people on the ground today. The potential in this region is huge.” What is the top trend in the physical security industry today? “The biggest trend on the market is definitely that the end users are demanding a complete security solution. And that is also one of the reasons for why we have started the Milestone community, because right now, as an end user, you do not want to buy storage, then software and then analytics – you expect that we will work together as an united front and solve your problems on all levels.” And what about technology trends? “We see a lot of robust video analytics coming through now. In the good old days a picture was a picture, now there are a lot of analytics, heat mapping and a lot of other fancy apps to turn video images into actionable intelligence. In the past, when analytics was admittedly less mature, many users saw analytics as an add-on but now they see it as a part of the solution. So from a technology perspective, the trend right now is towards delivering intelligent solutions which deliver real efficiencies while securing corporate assets and people.” Which video analytics features will become the next big thing? “We see a lot of features like door control, perimeter control, heat mapping and vertical sector specific offerings designed to deliver productivity gains. Today, you can do so much with the pictures, I think people are only aware of half of the stuff that we are able to do.” In an interview with Detektor a couple of years ago, your CEO Lars Thinggard said he wanted Milestone to become the Microsoft of VMS. How is that going? “Well, you can say that we are still moving in that direction although we are slightly smaller than Microsoft… But this is what we are trying to do with our community. If you look at Microsoft, they have a community and now that is what we are setting up and putting a lot of emphasis on. In the future we want our partners to be gathered on our website so customers can go to the Milestone online marketplace and buy new functionality and capabilities from within an ever-expanding Milestone community.” What is your biggest challenge as a company? “One of the biggest challenges is what to choose from all the innovative software applications and hardware on offer. We almost feel like a child in a candy store, because there are so many things that we can do. There are so many potentially great partnerships. With all the analytics you can apply to the pictures, and then if you add the cloud and the Internet of Things on top of that – our biggest challenge is to choose the best possible partners.” And from a legal perspective, we have the support of Canon – for example when trolls come and claim that we have violated their patents in the US or anywhere else in the world.” How do you work together with Canon? “We see Canon as a partner. They own us, but as we are a standalone company in the Canon Group, we are working with them as a partner just as we are working with all our other technology partners.” In which markets do you have the biggest potential to grow? “Right now we are experiencing a lot of growth in the European market. The UK is doing very well, same with Germany and on our home turf in the Nordic region. So Security News Every Day – www. securityworldhotel.com 20 • d etektor internati onal