IMS Research explains that examining the current market structure shows that whilst the upper tier of the market is occupied by a combination of the large, well established VMS brands and VMS offered by security solution providers; the middle and lower tiers are a “free-for-all”.

The research company suggests that for the more established VMS vendors to continue to enjoy the historic high growth rates they need to accomplish two key things: (1) maintain and increase presence in the upper market tier and (2) grow in the middle and lower tiers of the market. The enabler to satisfying both targets is innovation.

The key selling feature of many VMS systems has been “openness”, and whilst the ability to integrate to a broad range of video surveillance brands is still desirable, this has become more of a basic expectation. IMS Research believes that VMS vendors will work on the following innovations in the next twelve months:

Whilst different VMS solutions do contain unique features, in general the user interfaces are fairly similar. Manufacturers will seek to develop simpler and more intuitive user interfaces in the coming year. In addition, applications for mobile platforms, such as IOS and Android, will be the front of many VMS manufacturers’ arsenal in the coming year. The market for mobile video surveillance applications is still relatively immature, this is true for both the technology and the market demand. The functionality of the current generation of applications is generally confined within the boundaries of remote video viewing. Vendors will spend 2012 improving the utility of these applications. Simple concepts, such as leveraging location services to either show video from the camera closest to the mobile device or to arrange video streams from multiple cameras by proximity to the mobile device (e.g. a guard on patrol), would provide enhanced user experience.

The integration between access control and video surveillance systems has been a well trodden path in the last few years and this trend will persist through 2012. However, VMS vendors will look to further develop their offerings from pure-play VMS platforms to security management platforms. Looking at the PSIM (physical security information management) software market, there is a definite and tangible demand for situational awareness (a correlation of multiple sensor inputs to generate an actionable report and response) platforms in specific industry segments.

However, whilst the advantages of PSIM solutions are desirable, the cost of implementing these solutions is high, priced far outside the reach of many end-users. VMS vendors have already sought to bridge the gap between supply and demand for situational awareness by implementing “PSIM-like” features in their platforms (e.g. Enhanced visualisation functionality with Google or Esri maps). IMS Research believes that 2012 will see an acceleration of this trend.