On the Editor’s Desk

I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos, but I think being able to show you some stuff via iPhone pics is better than not having anything at all, and there’s just no way I’m carrying around a real digital camera with a decent lens all day, so this is what you get.

First up, evidence that the show was better today, following on the dead aisle pic I posted yesterday. Of course, I could have just cherry-picked something from the front, but this is from the back in a similar kind of spot at a similar time of day:

Also, check out the attendance for OnSSI’s demonstration. It never fails to put butts in seats, despite the fact they’ve basically had the same presentation for 2 years. Yes, the technology is different, but not so much so the casual observer would notice, and most of the guys that sit in these seats are casual types. The touch screen stuff is just cool.

The show was busy enough for me, that’s for sure, but I managed to resist stopping at the massage area. I’m kind of creeped out by massages anyway, and I can’t say the folks in this pic are in particularly flattering positions. (I’m a little vain. I admit it.)

Anyway, the way I relax on the show floor is to visit VideoNEXT. Their Macs immediately put me at ease. An interesting note is that Apple gives them all of this display stuff and the servers for free use whenever they ask for them to go to a trade show. They’ve got to give them back, but it’s sure nice to have a pallet of free stuff waiting for you at the show when you get there. Look for VideoNEXT to have a big announcement of a government win that’s all Mac based. Apple has a big government sales force that’s under the radar, but likely pretty effective if it’s anything like the rest of the company. Too bad no one at Apple is allowed to talk to the press. Ever.

One of the hottest new things in software is the “dashboard,” an interface for end users that gives them real-time stats that are easily digested. Here’s Pacom’s version of it, which is very slick, but Ionit have a similar thing happening geared toward business intelligence for retailers. Look for this to be everywhere in 2010. End users need stats to justify their jobs now more than ever. It’s not good enough to just say you’re protecting people and the enterprise, you have to prove it.

And, yeah, there were a ton of parties last night. I was going to go to the Stanley party, which I’m sure was awesome, but I discovered it was in Laguna Beach and that’s 45 minutes from here and I just felt like I was going to be trapped. In terms of seeing the most people in the least amount of time, I felt like I needed to be on foot and mobile, so I was able to hit Arecont, Bosch, Open Options, Verint, get denied by ADT (there’s a long and funny story behind that, but it’s probably not safe for the blog), and then hit the tail end of Tyco. I feel like that’s more productive than smoking cigars on the beach in Laguna, but I can’t say it was more fun. Kind of exhausting, really.

Anyway, here’s the Arecont crowd, which was very strong. It’s amazing to think how far Arecont has come in just three years. They’ve gone from being the industry outsider to the company everybody loves for their imaging and cost.

And here’s the Bosch tent that had quite a few vendors a little grumbly (maybe because they wish they thought of it?):

And here’s the inside of the tent. Bosch had all kinds of carnival games set up as head-to-head competitions with other vendors’ products. In this pic, an end user inexplicably makes himself look silly (again, the vanity, right?) for the opportunity to win a Bosch drill. The deal is that Bosch’s motion detector consistently picks up the guys trying to get through and the competition - GE Security and some others - doesn’t. It convinced me, and I love the bravado of the tent as a whole. In side-by-sides, they sort of kicked Pelco’s ass all over the place, and they weren’t shy about it. I think these kinds of “skills competitions” are healthy for the industry. Bosch acknowledged though that it isn’t just technology that’s gotten Pelco where it is, it’s customer service and the whole package, and Bosch knows its customer service can’t hang. It’s a balance, and Bosch feels technology is on their side and getting better on the other side.

The PSIA plugfest was also awesome, and I’ve got some pics from that, but I’m going to put that in a separate post later today.