We’ve just returned from PSA-TEC, the annual technology conference and expo put on by the PSA Security Network for their members and vendors. This is a week-long conference of extensive technical courses, networking sessions, and a vendor expo.
We’ve had a great relationship with PSA and its members since we wereaccepted as a vendor member early last year. A rapidly-growing number of PSA members are actively selling our exacqVision product line. Over the last year we’ve been involved in many exacqVision IP and Hybrid video surveillance installations in schools, hospitals, sports arenas, manufacturing facilities, financial institutions, and more with several PSA integrator members. At this year’s show, some of the latest features, such as the native Mac client and the mobile browser client attracted a great deal of attention.
On Wednesday evening, at the PSA Vendor Appreciation Dinner, Exacq Technologies was presented with the "Outstanding New Vendor" award. Dave Underwood, President of Exacq, accepted the award presented by PSA’s Jennifer Martin Anderson, VP of Vendor Technology & Education, and Bill Bozeman, President and CEO.
Our sincere thanks to Bill, Jennifer and the entire PSA organization and members for this award, for the enthusiastic reception to our product line, and for once again putting on a great member education conference.
Some vendors went above and beyond to answer questions for potential (or even current) customers. Exacq Technologies, for instance, had TJ Johnson, manager of software engineering, on hand at the booth to take tech questions (and suggestions) about their software. If a change were to be made to Exacq’s software, he’d be the one to do it.
With every exacqVision system or software order we include a detailed Quick Start Guide specific to that model. We have just updated all of the quick start guides, as well as added guides for some of the newer configurations, like the 4U Hybrid Servers and the 4U IP Servers.
All of the quick start guides are available on our Downloads page, or you can view them individually here:
We were once again at Interop Las Vegas, which concluded yesterday. This conference is a natural fit for us. Physical security is rapidly moving into the IT market with the advent of IP cameras and IP access control systems, and we saw significantly more interest and involvement from the IT integrators this year in IP video surveillance.
We had a stand in the IP Physical Security Pavilion, run by our friends at IPVS Magazine, where we showed the latest features of our exacqVision IP video surveillance software. In addition, Dan Rittman, the Director of Engineering for Exacq, participated in a panel discussion in the Physical Security Conference Track entitled "Implementation: Best Practices in Physical Security." Keven Marier of IPVS Magazine, Fredrik Nilsson of Axis Communications, and Dan all gave case studies in the use of IP video surveillance.
Keven’s presentation focused on the Retail sector, citing a case study of a large retailer that made the cost justification for going all-IP, with implementation numbers of almost 135,000 cameras over 2000 stores.
Fredrik’s presentation focused on the Transportation sector, and how - outside of airports - this is an under served market for IP video surveillance. He cited the Stockholm bus system, where Axis 209FD-R cameras have been widely deployed (video story here).
Dan’s presentation focused on the Education sector, with case studies from various school systems that have installed IP video surveillance systems: the case for it, the results our customers have seen, the cost justification, the network issues, the storage requirements, and the increasing requirements for Mac capability for video viewing. The PowerPoint presentation Dan used is embedded below.
Our thanks to Keven and the IPVS Magazine crew for doing another great job with the IP Physical Security Pavilion.
There is a new exacqVision price list. Dated May 1, 2008, this 11-page price list incorporates new system configurations, options, and has significant price reductions on some models.
Things of note in the May 1, 2008 price list:
Price Reductions - due to increased volume, we are able to pass along significant price reductions on Hybrid Servers of 1TB storage and above.
New Configurations - New system configurations with RAID-1 redundancy for OS and VMS software, designed for connection to iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage systems.
exacqVision was on display last week at tradeshows both to the north of us at Security Canada in Laval, and to the south of us at Expo Seguridad in Mexico City. Our representatives for both countries were there and each gave us a brief report.
Our Representative for Mexico, Raul Rodriguez of AccessGard, was exhibiting the exacqVision product in the Syestel booth at last week’s show in Mexico City. This is the largest physical security tradeshow in Mexico, and Syestel is one of the larger security integrators in Mexico, concentrating primarily on the banking sector. Raul and the folks at Syestel reported high traffic in the booth with great interest in exacqVision due to: 1) digital PTZ, 2) hybrid capability, 3) unlimited number of clients, 4) ease of use, 5) friendly search feature, and 6) easy creation of .exe files with search results. Our thanks to both AccessGard and Syestel for a successful show.
Our Manufacturers Rep for Canada, Tony Williams of Security Central Marketing, was at the first of this year’s regional Security Canada shows. He said attendance turnout for this year’s Quebec show was almost double that of last year, owing in part to a change of venue from Montreal to Laval. He also reported high traffic at the booth, and of interest in the exacqVision product said, "The attendees at the show were very impressed with the ease-of-use, low cost, and vast IP camera support of exacqVision. The fact that we have every solution covered, including hybrids, software only, IP servers, and Windows, Linux, and Mac clients also made quite an impression!" Tony will be exhibiting again at Security Canada West on June, 11, 2008, in Richmond, BC.
The complete list of our upcoming tradeshows and events is here.
On Thursday we joined our Erlanger, KY-based reseller Emerge IT Solutions and forty of their customers for product demonstrations and a baseball game at the Great American Ballpark - home of the Cincinnati Reds. In addition to having a beautiful day to watch the Reds play the Astros, the guests got to see the latest technology offered by Emerge: data storage, structured cabling and wireless infrastructure, and physical security solutions with the exacqVision VMS software.
Emerge is a leading IT provider in the Ohio and Kentucky area, and has recently begun offering physical security to their clients as part of the overall IT mix. It’s a perfect fit for them. They already supply their customers with audiovisual solutions and IT systems infrastructure. In many cases, they built these networks from the ground up. Adding physical security to the network is the next logical step, with IP cameras and exacqVision IP video management software.
Several products were on display in the suite. Connected to the exacqVision system were two Axis 207MW IP cameras inside the suite, and one IQeye 855 5-Mpixel Sentinel Series mounted outside the suite to provide a detailed view of the stadium.
Our thanks to Emerge for putting on such a great customer-oriented event. Emerge can be reached as follows:
The Indiana earthquake footage from last week that was captured on our in-house exacqVision IP video surveillance system has certainly garnered interest. It has been featured on Indianapolis-based WTHR-TV, South Bend-based WNDU-TV, a number of blogs, and the clips on YouTube have each received thousands of hits directly.
It also made the CBS News. Below is the CBS Mobile Newsbreak edition for April 19, 2008. The Exacq footage starts at 30-seconds in.
The Exacq headquarters is located in Indianapolis. This morning, at 5:37 am EDT, we were awoken by an earthquake whose epicenter was southwest of us, near the town of West Salem, IL. The US Geological Survey reports it as having been a magnitude 5.2 quake. Local news coverage of the earthquake is here and here and here.
We reviewed the surveillance footage from our exacqVision surveillance systems at our office for the time of the quake, and saw quite a bit of shaking. Below are two brief video clips taken from the systems.
The top clip, from one of our lobbies, is from an Axis 233D network dome IP camera that is mounted on its side. The bottom clip, from a back storage room, is from a JVC analog camera connected to the exacqVision Hybrid unit.
And as we were writing this post, an aftershock hit, at 11:15 am EDT.
Today’s Indianapolis Star newspaper has a feature story on Exacq Technologies in the business section. The reporter, James Harper, did a good job in tying together the growth of the video surveillance industry with the shift to IP cameras. A special thanks to Skip Sampson of Koorsen and Rich Best of Vigilcorp for their nice comments about us.
Not much escapes its digital eye Exacq Technologies’ adaptable software advances surveillance By James Harper, Star correspondent
Video surveillance is adapting to the needs and demands of an increasingly sophisticated clientele.
A company on Indianapolis’ Northeastside, led by a handful of forward-thinking colleagues, is at the forefront of the industry’s transition into the digital age.
Exacq Technologies, founded in 2002 by co-workers from another local surveillance company, offers cutting-edge software to run Internet Protocol, also called network cameras, in demand for their sharper images, broader range of capabilities and cost-effectiveness.
"Exacq is a real gem among industry software developers," said Skip Sampson, vice president and head of the security division at Indianapolis-based Koorsen Industries. "Their (exacqVision) technology is first-class, making it easier to collect, store and review video content or track it live."-
The exacqVision software, created in 2006, has spurred soaring sales for Exacq Technologies, which have risen 262 percent over the past two years. It’s also a key reason Exacq plans to increase staffing from 16 full-time workers to at least 26 by the end of this year, said Roger Shuman, the company’s marketing manager.
Exacq’s products are in demand at vulnerable high-traffic locations. Clients range from Plainfield’s aquatics center to customers such as the State Bank of Texas, Diamond Pet Centers of Missouri and Canberra International Airport in Australia.
As the security industry changes over from older analog cameras to newer digitally based network cameras, Exacq is poised to profit, since its software can work with multiple hardware platforms, said Dave Underwood, company president.
"There are probably millions of analog security cameras currently installed, but the industry is now moving toward IP systems," Underwood said. "We offer software that allows users to upgrade systematically, transitioning toward the newer technologies at their own pace, thus enabling them to better control cost."
A recent analysis by San Antonio, Texas-based Frost & Sullivan of the video surveillance software market found that higher demand for security spurred $139.8 million in sales in 2006. Frost & Sullivan estimated those revenues will increase nearly sixfold to $826 million by 2013.
IP cameras basically are miniature computers with lenses. They provide incredible detail along with pan, tilt and zoom capability. Their small size also enables easy installation even when space is limited.
Executives from locally based Koorsen and VigilCorp can attest to the remarkable growth from the move to IP networks. As two of Exacq’s largest customers, they are among its stronger supporters.
Koorsen is a family-owned business established here in 1946. According to Sampson, fire protection and security services are the fastest-growing segments of a company that employs more than 600 people in Indiana and parts of the Southeast.
Richard Best, owner of VigilCorp, which installs access-control and video-surveillance systems statewide, is optimistic about the future growth of his company, too.
"We are positioning ourselves to go national as the demand for security services expands," said Best, grandson of the founder of Best Lock Co. "Exacq offers a great product, and we use it for customers who require a cutting-edge installation."
As to Exacq’s future, Underwood is optimistic the company will double its sales over each of the next five years. He projects an annual revenue base "somewhere north of $30 million annually" by 2013.
Exacq Techologies’ genesis dates to AT&T’s Bell Labs in the mid-1980s. A few co-workers, led by Jeff Walters, formed a division within the company called the EPICenter, to focus on video-graphics hardware. In 1988 it became a separate company called Truevision, where Walters was joined by Underwood, Tom Buckley, Jim McMillion and others.
In 1994, Walters, Underwood and Buckley formed Integral Technologies, based in Indianapolis, which created the Xpress image capture boards that helped launch the digital video surveillance industry. Integral since has been sold several times.
And in 2002, Dan Rittman joined Walters, Underwood, McMillion and Buckley to form Exacq Technologies.
One reason for Exacq’s success, said Rittman, now the company’s director of engineering and chief designer of the exacqVision software, "is that we had the opportunity to make all our first-time mistakes with predecessor companies."
Underwood echoes Rittman’s comments, adding that "most of us here have gone through the exercise of founding and nurturing an entrepreneurial startup, so there are few challenges that we can’t anticipate."
We are pleased to announce that Stephen Self has joined Exacq Technologies in the role of Technical Support Specialist.
Stephen is no stranger to us. We had the privilege of working with him back when we owned Integral Technologies, where he played vital roles as a Senior Support Engineer and a Software QA Engineer. About three years ago he left Integral to take a position with Dell, where he was, among other things, the support manager in charge of a 3000-seat Dell installation within Citibank in Florida.
Stephen’s experience in managing support services at companies both big and small will certainly be welcome here at Exacq. We’re experiencing rapid growth, and Stephen will be instrumental in ensuring that we maintain support practices and procedures sufficient to support our channel.
Stephen can be reached at sself@exacq.com or by phone at +1-317-845-5710.
We’ve just returned from PSA-TEC, the annual technology conference and expo put on by the PSA Security Network for their members and vendors. This is a week-long conference of extensive technical courses, networking sessions, and a vendor expo. 
There is a new exacqVision price list. Dated May 1, 2008, this 11-page price list incorporates new system configurations, options, and has significant price reductions on some models.
Our Representative for Mexico, Raul Rodriguez of 
Our Manufacturers Rep for Canada, Tony Williams of 
On Thursday we joined our Erlanger, KY-based reseller 
The Indiana 
The Exacq headquarters is located in Indianapolis. This morning, at 5:37 am EDT, we were awoken by an earthquake whose epicenter was southwest of us, near the town of West Salem, IL. The US Geological Survey 
Today’s 
We are pleased to announce that Stephen Self has joined Exacq Technologies in the role of Technical Support Specialist.