Gus Brecher is one of the founders of Durban based, Cathexis, and has therefore been with the company throughout its evolution into one of the leading global VMS providers. When Cathexis started out, it manufactured its own brand of video surveillance recorders, video encoders and even IP cameras in South Africa before focusing on software and developing Cathexisvision. Although, Brecher notes, the company still does local hardware manufacturing on a smaller scale through one of its divisions, focusing on peripheral equipment for the surveillance systems. It also produces NVRs in the regions it operates in for customers who prefer to buy their hardware with Cathexisvision pre-installed.

While many local manufacturers have been bought by international companies over the years, Cathexis is still 100% locally owned and its development is also 100% local. This has not stopped it from expanding globally and the company today has some large enterprise VMS installations under its belt, such as managing over 65 000 video channels for one of the largest retail groups in the UK, as well as being the VMS of choice for one of the world’s largest stock exchanges with offices in 21 countries.

Innovation has always been part of Cathexis and its core team of developers have been with the company for over a decade. This has seen it developing Cathexisvision as well as integrations with thousands of third-party cameras and other devices. The security industry (access control, alarms etc.) is its primary focus, but Brecher says the IoT is creating new opportunities for allowing customers to manage more ‘things’ from the central platform they are familiar with.

Future developments to look out for from Cathexis are in the field of improved analytics enhanced by AI and a broader scope of analytical applications to choose from. Additionally, the company has re-architected its core to cater for cloud services and will enhance these abilities to offer a federated cloud architecture to customers as well as services (such as video surveillance-as-a-service).

OSPA winners were selected by a panel of industry figures who judged entries using the same criteria which is applied to the OSPAs around the world. Each winner demonstrated that they have performed at an exceptional level have and has shown their commitment and outstanding performance within the security sector.

OSPAs founder, Professor Martin Gill, said, “We are very happy to be able to bring the OSPAs to South Africa with the help of Securex South Africa and our supporting associations. The outstanding performers in security often operate under the radar and it is important to recognise those who are the best at what they do. This year’s finalists and winners should feel very proud.”