Four companies team for full-featured surveillance

TAMPA, Fla.--IPVision Software, a designer of security information management systems, based here; IQinVision, a maker of IP cameras; Agent Video Intelligence, a video analytics maker; and Appear Networks, a provider of context-aware software infrastructure powering mobile applications, have announced a joint marketing agreement. The solution will combine IPVision's command and control platform with IQinVision's megapixel cameras, Agent VI's analytics and Appear's mobile alerts to create an IP-based network camera management platform. Mark Felberg, founder and chief executive officer of IPVision, said the partnership came about somewhat organically. "I met Appear working on an airport together," he said by way of example. "The customer forced us to work together." He said an integrator, Epsilon Systems Solutions, put him in touch with Agent VI. Felberg said his background in the IT world and the IPVision console's open architecture allows him to integrate easily with other products, but felt he'd already partnered with the best of breed for most of the end-to-end solution he's looking to offer customers. "The only thing I could see adding is more hardware," he said. Going forward, the four companies will have common sales literature and "we'll do some kind of bundling," Felberg said, meaning each company will be able to sell the other's products. The end result, he hopes, will be a solution that's geared toward the smart integrator. "We'll add functionality as needed by the customer," Felberg said. "If the integrators ask the right questions; ask the customer, 'How can I solve your problems,'" IPVision's partnership should serve them well. He noted that IPVision was able to rewrite its software and offer it up for secure download to L-3 so that company could fulfill a Department of Defense request. Customers are demanding this kind of affiliation, said Dieter Kondek, president and chief executive officer of Agent VI. "We want to show the integrators that the products will be integratable with each other," he said. "They want to know, 'Are your engineering teams working together?' They can either use products like ours that work together or they can go to one of the big guys, where they try to sell you everything out of one basket, which no one believes is possible." "You will see more of these partnerships," said Kondek, both with Agent VI and throughout the market.