Hyped Market for Smart Cameras
From USATODAY.com:
A story analyzing the market for video surveillance from an investment perspective. First, some perspectives:
In 2006, venture capitalists and other investors poured $100 million into late-stage video surveillance technology companies. Experts think the market is ready for consolidation.
Yet while digital video cameras are starting to emerge, more than 90% of cameras today still generate conventional analog images. Generally, that camera is attached to a video recorder or encoding appliance to translate the analog signal to digital. Start-ups making this conversion technology include . . . . These companies also typically offer some form of video analytics to help determine whether an image is important or not.
“We’re going to see more (mergers and acquisitions) from the likes of IBM and Cisco,” said Dilip Sarangan, a research analyst with Frost & Sullivan, a San Antonio-based technology consulting firm. “A lot of the previous M&A activity has been from traditional security players, but now it’s a growth market for information technology firms.”
Breaux Walker, managing director of America’s Growth Capital, an investment bank in San Francisco . . . “I think this is a hyped bubble,” Walker said. “When you look at the market, it’s just not that massive.”
While I don’t have any real knowledge for how fast this market is growing, my feeling is that its not very fast. While smart cameras systems are being installed, it is still a very small part of the market. There are lots of reasons for this, but I think most of these will disappear in the next 5-10 years as IP cameras proliferate and image processing power increases. So while I wouldn’t bet on these round of companies, I think its inevitable that this technology will be deployed.
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