Steelbox repositions itself for growth

ATLANTA--Brian Cohen has been chief executive at video management manufacturer Steelbox for a little less than a year, but he’s just now shaping the company as he’d like. “I guess about a year and a half ago, we embarked on a commercial and channel-oriented strategy,” Cohen said. “And about three months after I got here, I decided a channel strategy was a poor fit. So we’ve reset the company to move toward more of an OEM and large-deal kind of structure.” This has required a move away from a channel-oriented sales force and other company restructuring. “We were top-heavy,” Cohen admitted. But, now “we’re working closely with A&Es and systems integrators, as well as OEMs who might use us in their customer offerings. We were spending too much time trying to build a complete solution, rather than working through third parties as a piece of a solution.” “What we do phenomenally well,” Cohen said, “is that we can process and switch video faster than anybody else. You’ll see us make a push to show people how to use our video-switching capabilities.” Already, he said, companies like Telindus and VidSys are incorporating Steelbox’s technology into their offerings. Further, you may see Steelbox move beyond the security space: “The only thing Steelbox has done so far is surveillance,” Cohen said, “but our technology is applicable to broadcasting and other places, and I’m trying to market this into all the markets where it makes sense. “The irony is that the original founding engineers-that was their vision. Somehow along the way it go moved into an all-surveillance, all-commercial thing.”