Milestone: Specialized Video Solutions for Critical Industries and SMB

Speaking at the 2022 Milestone Partner Summit in Dubai, Milestone Systems’ CEO Thomas Jensen revealed details of how the provider of XProtect aims to empower people, businesses, and societies with data-driven video technology software that serves end users both in and beyond the traditional video security industry.

As part of this growth strategy, Milestone aims to more than double its annual turnover within the next five years. Milestone’s CEO is also committed to continuing to strengthen the company’s position as a responsible technology organization. “We are preparing to revolutionize our industry by using data-driven video technology both in and beyond security,” said Jensen.
 

Data-Driven Video Technology as an Enabler

While maintaining its core safety and security video management offering, Milestone will introduce video solutions for various industries from 2023 onwards. Next year, it will launch new solutions aimed at the healthcare industry, starting with video-enabled solutions for hospitals. “We see a future in which data-driven video technology is a game-changer that will help to make the world a better place for us all,” Jensen told Milestone’s top partner resellers, system integrators, security specialists, and service providers who attended MIPS.
Jensen outlined how XProtect, which can be integrated with the widest choice of devices and other security solutions, currently enables people to understand the world they see by viewing recorded or real-time video data. Through the responsible use of data-driven video technology, XProtect will soon be able to predict events before they happen, which will further enhance Milestone’s offering in and beyond security.
As Milestone continues to invest in strengthening its core platform and XProtect software, the company aims to serve as a blueprint for how other leading technology firms can engage in responsible business practices that benefit societies at large.

Health Care Applications

In the healthcare industry, Milestone’s key asset is the XProtect open platform video management system that can build the basis for bringing together video and data integrations, video analytics, and cloud solutions to address critical industry needs. XProtect currently supports more than 11,000 different security devices from more than 500 manufacturers. In addition, the company’s ecosystem of technology partners includes providers of network video cameras, cloud services, storage equipment, access control,

Kite for Small- to Medium-sized ­Businesses and Organizations

Milestone continues to increase its range of on-premise, hybrid-cloud, and cloud-native data-driven video technology solutions. The new Milestone Kite Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) complements Milestone’s existing XProtect on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Milestone Kite is a simple, secure, and scalable VSaaS solution for small- to medium-sized businesses, where XProtect on AWS is optimized for the enterprise market.
Milestone Kite is aimed at single or distributed organizations that need an easy way to centrally manage all their sites in one unified system. Providing continuous access to new features with little or no maintenance effort, it is designed for businesses and enterprises with high value, less complexity, and multiple geographic locations such as banks, retail chains, schools, and residential buildings. Powered by the Arcules cloud platform, Milestone Kite is a simple, secure, scalable, and cost-effective cloud video management solution with integrated video analytics and access control functions. It will be available in early 2023.

Since October 2021, Jos Beernink has led Milestone’s EMEA business. GIT SECURITY spoke to Jos about our market, the outlook for 2023 and how clever video management can solve challenges in the industry.

GIT SECURITY: You mentioned that Milestone had a great year in the EMEA region with 30 % growth. Is this growth already fuelled by your initiatives to expand beyond security?

Jos Beernink:  We have been seeing great numbers in EMEA this year. Our teams all over the region have been working hard to get us in this position. The growth comes from both our core business within security but also within industries like healthcare and hospitality. As we offer more and more industry specific solutions the coming years, these areas will for sure be an important part of our future growth. That being said, we are staying true to our core strength as a video technology software company.

What is your outlook for 2023 regarding business trends and with the given economic background?

Jos Beernink: At Milestone we are very bullish because AI and machine learning open a whole new scale of possibilities, solutions, and integrations in and beyond security. If you look at transportation clients like airports for instance, we see an enormously challenged industry where they struggle to keep operations running while it at the same time is very difficult to attract skilled employees and also being confronted with much higher passenger quantity.
This situation drives a demand for clever VMS security solutions because airports and in many other areas businesses are challenged to do more with less resources. We at Milestone Systems have great solutions to fulfil that market trend. That’s why we are being very optimistic for 2023 and the years to come.

At MIPS the new initiatives for ­critical markets were announced. Can you give us more details?

Jos Beernink: So far, we have built our business around security and our core product XProtect. This has been very successful over the last decades, and we will continue to sell Xproduct this way. Going forward, however, we want to know our customers’ needs even better to deliver value and business outcomes. In the end, we want to sell solutions that add value for specific industries. Based on a deeper understanding of the customers’ objectives, needs and challenges within specific industries, Milestone plans to bring proven industry-specific video solutions to healthcare and hospitality over time. Milestone’s XProtect open platform video management system (VMS) is the perfect tool for bringing together the best-in-class video and data integrations, video analytics, and cloud solutions to address critical industry needs.

Video analytics is in the heart of many innovations in our industry. What role can ­Milestone play to enable better video analytics?

Jos Beernink: We must enable our open platform to use the best of breed technologies that are out there. Within AI and analytics, there are some big companies, but also an enormous number of smaller companies available – very specific vertical solutions based on analytics. The real power is that we have an open platform, so our clients in the end can choose the best of breed solutions suiting their specific demands.