VidSys launches VIP program

ALEXANDRIA, Va., and MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--Operations center software developer VidSys and security integrator North American Video have partnered to better target the gaming industry. The partnership is part of a larger initiative by VidSys called the VidSys Interoperability Partner program, designed to create a total solution for the command center environment. North American Video is the first integrator partner in the program. Manufacturers Steelbox, which makes storage solutions, and Barco, which makes video monitors, are already on board. "If you look at the genesis of VidSys," said Tony Lapolito, vice president of marketing, "we spun out of a systems integrator [DTS], so the technology that we developed was ideally suited for that integrator ... Now we want to spin it out for other companies." The goal, he said, is to identify integrators who are best of class in their respective verticals. "Obviously," said Lapolito, "North American Video's reputation in the gaming vertical is unparalleled." "North American Video has experienced a great deal of success in the gaming industry," NAV president Cynthia Freschi wrote in an e-mail interview with Security Systems News following the opening of their Macau office, designed to target the gaming industry there. "However, we are very diversified in terms of the market categories we service." She mentioned the government, education, retail, and healthcare markets as strengths. That might dovetail with VidSys' success with state and local government and the military. All told, Lapolito said VidSys would only look to sign up a dozen or so integrators. "I'm a big fan of narrow and deep as opposed to wide and shallow," he said. "The type of sale that we have requires a very tight relationship between the integrator and the vendor. We're not signing up as many as we can as fast as we can. We'd just wind up with a bunch of logos on our web site."