"ONVIF has made impressive progress," says Simon Harris, Senior Research Director at IMS Research. "In less than two years, the organization has attracted companies that account for 72% of the global network video surveillance market. Several of these have already released ONVIF conformant products or software, so it is becoming quite clear that ONVIF will impact the global security industry as a whole."

The market support for ONVIF was evident also at the recent ISC West security exhibition in Las Vegas, where a multitude of companies promoted their ONVIF membership and conformant products. At the same exhibition, more than 250 persons visited ONVIF's open reception and
interoperability demonstration.

"The reception at ISC West was a great representation of what ONVIF is all about - interoperability," says Pete Lockhart, VP Emerging Technologies at Anixter. "We connected more than 20 products from different companies to a network, and the cameras could immediately exchange information and video data with the various video management software. This would
have been impossible if the products didn't have the same network interface. Overall, the ONVIF interface enables integrators to focus on solving the customers' surveillance needs, instead of making the products they choose compatible with each other."

Another sign of ONVIF's impact on the security industry is the organization's recent decision to include physical access control systems in its standardization work. "The scope extension is a direct result of the effectiveness that ONVIF has demonstrated to achieve a global open standard for network video products," says Jonas Andersson, Axis Communications and chairman of
ONVIF's steering committee. "We were approached by several members and system integrators who would like to see a similar development for access control products. And with ONVIF's strong belief in open standards and interoperability, it was a natural step for us to extend the
scope."