Genetec’s IP security software solutions at IFSEC 2015

Pierre Racz, President & CEO of Genetec, highlights the importance of software in the physical security market and also discusses cloud adoption. At IFSEC 2015, he speaks about companies moving towards end-to-end solutions as well as about the impact of cloud on security market.

Importance of software for the physical security market

Larry Anderson: Hello, I'm Larry Anderson, Editor of sourcesecurity.com, and I'm here with Pierre Racz who is the President and CEO of Genetec. And we're to talk about one of your favorite subjects, which is software.

Pierre Racz: I love software.

Larry Anderson: How important is software to the physical security market, Pierre?

Pierre Racz: Software is essential for the physical security market. The best analogy, I think, is the human body. Software is to hardware what the brain is to the body. The brain is about 3% per weight of the body and in deal software is also about 5 to 10% of the weight of the deal but the brain is the only organ for which it's better to be a donor than a recipient.

On end-to-end solutions versus stand-alone solutions

Larry Anderson: So Genetec is...the industry seems to be moving to end to end solutions and Genetec is one of the only stand-alone software companies. What does that mean or why is that important?

"There is going to be an important cloud component. It's not gonna be all cloud. You need a hybrid system. You do need some things on your ground station and other things in the cloud.

Pierre Racz: I think that this is an industry fad. We always see oscillations like that. We've seen in the past, customers box themselves in with end to end solutions. This gave them short-term gain for a long-term pain. A lot of the very large projects, it's impossible to have a single vendor to solve all of their problems, so that they do need a whole ecosystem. We play in that area, and we play very well with others, so this end to end solution is not affecting us too much.

Missed opportunities in the video security market

Larry Anderson: What would you say, looking at the market as a whole, what is the biggest missed opportunity you see?

Pierre Racz: Our most forward-looking customers actually use derivative information from combining unstructured information, that is video with structured information such as access control or other sensor devices, to gain operational efficiency. I think that not enough people are actually benefiting from this huge advantage.

Larry Anderson: So we need more structured information and less unstructured information?

Pierre Racz: No, you need to be able to co-relate the two and therefore they benefit each other. There is a wealth of data in unstructured information. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So often you don't think of putting in sensors to measure something, and you can derive that information from the video. But how do you find that video? It is structured information that you derive from your operations, point of sale, other different sensors, access control.

Impact of cloud on security market

Larry Anderson: How will the cloud change the security marketplace?

"Our most forward-looking customers actually use derivative information from combining unstructured information, that is video with structured information such as access control or other sensor devices"

Pierre Racz: Well, today everybody is using cloud electricity. So imagine this, 100 years ago, everybody had their own electricity production plant to power their manufacturing facilities. Today, no, we rely on the electric companies to provide us electricity that is essentially from the cloud. The amount of technology that is behind keeping that electricity at a very high availability is astounding, and we take it for granted. The same thing is going to be happening to computing, where we are going to be basically buying compute as a utility.

Future of security market for the next 10 years

Larry Anderson: What will the security market place look like 10 years from now?

Pierre Racz: Well, first of all, there is going to be an important cloud component. It's not gonna be all cloud. You need a hybrid system. You do need some things on your ground station and other things in the cloud. But roughly, there's gonna be a 10 to 1 resource distribution in the cloud. So this is gonna be changing the type of work that integrators are gonna be doing. They are gonna be doing much more planning, much more high value-added work, much more data sovereignty work. They're gonna be planning on-demand computing, and they are gonna be doing less low level, low margin work such as provisioning computers because now we'll be able to provision computing resources at a click of a button.

Larry Anderson: Wow. Well, I appreciate your taking the time today to talk to us and good seeing you again.

Pierre Racz: Larry, thank you very much.

Larry Anderson: Thank you.