After two years when Milestone organized regional partner events in every single European country, this year MIPS Europe was back to Copenhagen. About 250 people from 35 countries used the event for networking, getting the latest information about Milestone's product offering and evaluating all the options Milestone's partners offer. In the center of the presentation was the expanded new offering Milestone has developed for the low to mid-range market.

A Strong Position as the Basis for Further Growth
The first day kicked off with a live video stream of Milestone President & CEO Lars Thinggaard speaking from outside the auditorium on the banks of the canal where the Copenhagen Police had stationed one of their riot vans, outfitted with a 360-degree roof camera viewable and manageable inside via Milestone Video Management Software (VMS), also streaming remotely to the Command Center at police HQ downtown. Thinggaard's keynote speech projected the tipping point for IP technology over analog in the security market to be 2014, which has already been achieved in the high-end market in EMEA and the US. Lars Thinggaard made clear that he considers Milestone to be in a very good position to grow the business further: „Through ambitious management strategy and focused organizational operations, we are performing with profitability and a strong cash position. We consistently evolve our tiered and reliable solutions, while we scale geographically with our business model that builds channel expertise and differentiation through training certifications. We are therefore well positioned for continued growth, and have expanded again in 2011 by opening offices in three new world regions in support of our international scope and response to market demands." While the market for video management systems is expected to show compound annual growth rates of 30% for the period from 2009 to 2015, Lars Thinggaard wants his company to grow 50% faster than the market.
Ambitious plans for the VMS world leader for the seventh year in a row according to the latest IMS Research report. At MIPS, Simon Harris from IMS Research presented excerpts of the latest report "The World Market for CCTV and Video Surveillance Equipment - 2011 Edition" that shows Milestone Systems' top position for the world market category of ‘Open Platform Network Video Management Software'. While the network video surveillance market grew almost three times as fast as the total market in 2010 - over 30%, Milestone grew 56% in revenue and maintained its market standing.

The Key to Future Success: Expansion in the Regions plus a Full Portfolio of Products
Milestone has expanded their global presence this year by opening offices in Brazil, Bulgaria and India, as part of the company's strategic plans for continued success in the high-growth market for IP video surveillance. In 2011 Milestone Systems established a company in Bulgaria that is developing new functionality for the open platform IP video management software. Milestone has also set up offices in Brazil and India to support long-term goals for organizational expansion. Over recent years, the company has seen positive growth in these areas. In total, in the first six months of 2011, Milestone Systems hired more than 65 new employees, a 20 percent increase in the total staff.
Besides the global expansion, a fast response to market demands shall bolster Milestones future success. Milestone recognized that two key factors are impacting the decline of the analog video surveillance market: The large and enterprise tier of the market transitioning to network video solutions and increasing price competition and commoditization in the mid to low end. Milestone is addressing this with newly released versions of XProtect Professional and XProtect Essential, and a brand new product called XProtect Express. The new versions were all presented to Milestones's partners at MIPS in Copenhagen. „Milestone now has an even stronger and more competitive family of open platform IP video management software, offering more options from the world's leading solution provider: deeper functionality, fast and flexible installations, and affordability. We are excited to reveal our new product XProtect Express, and the latest updates to the XProtect product suite," says Lars Gudbrandsson, Head of Product Management at Milestone Systems.

XProtect Professional - the power to do more
XProtect Professional is a VMS for mid-sized installations with multiple servers supporting up to 64 cameras per server. XProtect Professional is a complete solution for single-site installations with multiple buildings requiring integration with business systems and video analytics. It is ideal for installations with a large number of megapixel and HD cameras.

XProtect Express - Fastest way to video enable business
XProtect Express is a new addition to the Milestone product line. Supporting up to 48 cameras on a single server, it offers speedy VMS integration for small businesses like retail. Due to the open platform environment, businesses can seamlessly integrate solutions such as point-of-sale and video analytics directly into the XProtect Smart Client, for a common interface and unified operating system.

XProtect Essential offers brilliant simplicity
In addition to these releases, Milestone is also now offering XProtect Essential 2 designed for small, single-server businesses that want to manage up to 26 surveillance cameras. With a wide set of features to view and export video evidence, XProtect Essential is cost effective with a flexible licensing model that makes it easy to expand the system.

Integration and Partners
Milestone Systems software provides an open platform with a well-documented Milestone Integration Platform Software Development Kit. This continues to attract new Milestone Solution Partners from all over the world: about 300 companies have integrated the Milestone XProtect IP video platform with such systems as access control, Point-of-Sales, analytics, biometrics, HVAC, building automation, ERP, RFID, production, logistics, and more. 24 partners showed their solutions at the exhibition during MIPS in Copenhagen.

It was impressive to see "live" that Milestones follows a clear strategy not to implement additional functionalities that go beyond video management into their VMS on their own, but stay with their open platform concept, where partners offer best of breed technology that can be easily linked to the Milestone products. For Lars Gudbrandsson "open platform" is not only a concept, but "it is in our DNA", as he explains. Product Management at Milestone and the people who organize the partner program at Milestone work very close together not only to integrate new products into the Milestone VMS but also to ensure that Milestone's partner can easily adopt their products to the fast product development of Milestone.
Martin Friis-Mikkelse, Head of Strategic Alliances, explained in Copenhagen that Milestone wants to bring their already very intense partner program to the next level. In addition to the programs for camera manufacturers and technology partners for hardware, Milestone will have an additional focus on solution partners, who develop software on-top of the Milestone VMS. Milestone plans to offer certifications for this solutions, tested and certified by an external agency, to ensure that the customer gets a completely compliant and certificated software.

On the final day of the event, Eric Fullerton, Milestone Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, started the agenda with his presentation on ‘The Shape of IP Today and Tomorrow', expounding on concepts described in his newest white paper: ‘Megatrends in Video Surveillance'. He stated: "The value of the partner channel is the dark horse in the race for IP to win over analog in market share: the tipping point is when IP's influence turns the current of the tide to inevitability - when the floodgates break down and traditional security partners can no longer make their living with analog and they can see its end-of-life. Increased processing power will combine with new expectations of usability from the next generation of operators: the multi-tasking youth of today will demand it."