IP-Based Surveillance Market: Take a Look

The market for IP-based video surveillance equipment grew about 50 percent in 2007, say researchers at MultiMedia Intelligence. It's a new market, so equipment sales will not knock your socks off: $500 million worldwide. But that's a comparative growth rate 400 percent higher than for traditional cameras and other gear to support video surveillance. And IP gear tends to be smaller and cheaper, so more equipment is bought, even at lower aggregate sales volumes.

The important thing to note is that many of those cameras are connected to live monitoring centers. That's another IP trunking revenue stream.

Also, keep in mind that high-defintion plasma displays are starting to show up in more retail and professional settings than one has seen in the past. Video, in short, is starting to become an immersive medium, not confined to traditional TV screens. That's going to represent lots more opportunities for services, applications and gear.

All those screens have to be installed and configured, for example. That's going to increase the amount of work available to multimedia "home theater" installers, for example. And since some increasing number of those video screens are going to be networked, a new type of application for traditional value added resellers to support as well. That's not to mention video services and bandwidth sales.