MIPS 2020: Leaving No Partners Behind and Dispelling Cloud Myths

GRAPEVINE, Texas — Milestone Systems delivered its 15th annual Milestone Integration Platform Symposium (MIPS) here at the Gaylord Texan hotel. The company needed a Texas-sized hotel to house the 700 attendees, and leverage their video roots to virtually engage another 1,500 global attendees; an innovative idea eliminating some of the “friction” to participate in a new way through the Cloud. Friction being defined as costs, time, travel and hassle. That would remain a theme throughout the symposium.

The big news was that Milestone has engaged in building a working relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a proof-of-concept stage to enable a fundamental shift in moving toward provisioning video to the Cloud, for all the right reasons. The new angle that makes this unique included the acronym BYOL (bring your own license).

Those who read my “Business Fitness” column know how much I love new acronyms. Crossing from the on-prem video to the Cloud is like crossing a bridge — as illustrated in the image below — which Milestone’s Kevin Marier, director of technology business development, shared in his presentation. The smart part of this strategy?

Kevin Marier, director of technology business development for Milestone presents at MIPS 2020.

They are leaving no partners behind by providing them with new choices they can evaluate as the technology Cloud rains down new opportunities for growth, scalability, cost reduction and speed of commissioning new systems. It’s all about choices to reduce client friction and provide a migration path for both early adopters and laggards alike … whew!

Marier also dispelled some common Cloud myths which he described as “Cloud washing” to help everyone better understand the true versatility of new edge Cloud technologies in entirely new ways. A New York systems integrator, New York Security Solutions, shared with great impact the case study of a video deployment at the wework company that included Arcules technology and a vast amount of existing video assets that were reconfigured remotely and configured in the Cloud.

This included 10,000 connected cameras, 100 global locations, delivered in five months, saved the client $1.4 million, with zero down time and 1,000 users supported. The impressive part to the story? The systems integrator never stepped foot inside any of those facilities during the project. Buckle your seat belts.

Marier made his point dramatically which was followed by a clap of thunder and lightning and loss of power in the auditorium at the end of his presentation. Well played, Kevin.

Reducing your customer’s business friction to address their security needs offers new ways to differentiate your business. This comes in all varieties large and small; so, let’s start small.

For customers making buying decisions based on price alone without adequate consideration toward the future, reducing that friction point means providing customers with education (which Milestone is again investing heavily in) and better choices on how they deploy, update, record, store and utilize video data.

Enabling customers to “see the future” reduces buying friction. Milestone told a compelling storyline and strategy to accomplish this. Secondly, the friction of differentiation in a customer’s mind in a very competitive video surveillance marketplace filled with so many choices is a challenge. Reduce this friction with a simple black and white statement: Choose no future choices with a proprietary solution with increasing costs OR choose a flexible video platform with lots of choices and continually lowered cost factors based on efficiency of scale.

Lastly, what friction has the elephant in the room created with on premises, Cloud, or something else for management of our video needs? I choose the last friction reducer strategy. Why?

A hybrid solution leverages the best of both worlds, while reducing technical and psychological shock to customers and system integrators. Milestone and their partners shared many different strategies, products and processes to accomplish that goal. To be clear, some friction is good to begin asking necessary, provocative and differentiating questions. Just make sure you have some answers first.

I am accused of liking security technology … guilty. I am endlessly fascinated with businesses that push envelopes of conventional thinking, and I frequently evaluate how technology will impact in a positive way the industry in which I grew up in. Attending MIPS 2020 was a fix for my inner business/techno/recovering engineer soul. I wasn’t disappointed with the event and its approach to our future as the leading evangelist of “open platform” security integration thinking.

Key points summarized:

• A strategy of moving toward the Cloud is a good business strategy
• Cloud strategies exponentially reduce the workload of system integrators
• Cloud services are expanding, dropping in cost and save your customers money
• New generation technicians will want to gravitate to companies that work in the Cloud
• Trends and statistics indicate an edge-based Cloud and/or a hybrid approach is here today
• You do not need to go it alone; there are great partners who are invested in your success
• The future belongs to those that can break out of mental prisons and think differently about video

Great symposium! Congrats, Milestone, well done!

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