D-Tec comes to U.S.

ATLANTA--British video smoke detection company D-Tec is laying the groundwork to expand its operations to the United States and expects to open an office in Atlanta by year-end. Video smoke detection, or VSD, uses algorithms to detect smoke and fire from standard CCTV footage. D-Tec is a subsidiary of AD Holdings Group, which also owns Dedicated Micros. Several D-Tec staff members were in the United States in August, "working on building existing and future relations within the fire industry. The company's representatives also carried out a number of meetings regarding potential installations, and design and negotiation is taking place," said Tim Compston, group public relations manager for AD Group Holdings in an email interview. Compston said D-Tec has a number of partners in the United States, including "Honeywell, Fire Sentry and Space Age Electronics. These companies will need support and guidance." Dedicated Micros will be one of D-Tec's major customers, he said, "and support will be given to Dedicated Micros' analytics offering." D-Tec will work closely with "Dedicated Micros providing fire and security systems to a large customer portfolio. Harnessing the NetVu Connected architecture, D-Tec and Dedicated Micros will be able to offer unique solutions to both industries," Compston said. Mark Provinsal, Dedicated Micros' vice president of marketing said the partnership marks the first time Dedicated Micros "will have the ability to add analytics to its product offering," Dedicated Micros was showing the Fire-Vu product at its ASIS booth in September. "We showed [D-Tec's] analytics working with our encoders ... it's totally integrated." Provinsal said details of how the technology will be delivered to customers in the Americas will be released in 2008. The relatively new field of video smoke detection has steadily gained more attention particularly since it received NFPA 72 approval in 2006. One established company is AxonX, a VSD company based in Sparks, Md. (search "AxonX" at www.securitysystemsnews.com). AxonX has won awards from the Wall Street Journal and Frost & Sullivan and has an established partnership with Johnson Controls.