Abstract

This IDC study examines the VSaaS market and those vendors that participate in it. Vendors were invited to participate in the research and, ultimately, 10 vendors offered VSaaS solution either in part or through technology partner arrangements. The VSaaS market is characterized by a rather crowded field of competitors, many of which are smaller but that may offer innovative solutions. However, in the interests of brevity, the more prominent vendors were approached and, as this study notes, offer a range of cloud-based service offerings. Potential video surveillance service buyers need to carefully consider their intended application of these services, their potential uses of them in the future, and their desire for integration with business applications outside the safety and security area of consideration.

According to Mike Jude, research director for IDC's Video Surveillance and Vision Applications research practice, "the video surveillance as a service (VSaaS) market is a rapidly evolving one that is quickly acquiring mainstream acceptance." Jude notes: "VSaaS is demonstrating that is a way for organizations to shift the overheads associated with acquiring, processing, and utilizing video data to the cloud. This effectively converts a capex approach to video surveillance to one that focuses on opex." However, Jude notes that "potential users of VSaaS offerings should carefully consider where outsourcing part or all of their video surveillance capabilities to a third party will position them effectively for future applications, especially those involving integrating video data with business analytics."

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