ISC West a bigger spectacle than ever

LAS VEGAS--ISC West, held here in Las Vegas at the Sands Convention Center, this year has a "20 percent larger floor," according to Reed Exhibitions' industry vice president Dean Russo, with "over 1,000 vendors" and pre-registration "up 15 percent." It is, he said, the "largest ever." That information jibed with anecdotal evidence collected on the show floor from industry veterans. A consistent opinion was that people had never seen the exhibition space busier. "Yesterday, you couldn't see the rug," joked Joe Olmstead at Pelco, whose dealer party, held Wednesday night, featured rock band Chicago and speed-of-sound breaker Chuck Yeager. Along with Pelco, major manufacturers like Panasonic (releasing 40 new products), GE Security (announcing a push into the realm of nanotechnology), DSC (releasing its first major revamping of the Power Series line in a decade), Genetec (pushing into the US market for the first time, and touting Federation software that will allow security networks to integrate with one another) and Fargo (announcing its first printer capable of working with over-sized cards), took ISC West as an opportunity to unveil new innovations to the market. For a full account of major announcements at ISC West, see the May issue of Security Systems News.