Warren Brown named president of ObjectVideo

RESTON, Va.—Saying it's a “pivotal time” for video analytics in the security industry and for ObjectVideo in particular, Warren Brown on July 30 assumed the newly created role of president at the video analytics provider.

Raul Fernandez will continue to serve in his role as ObjectVideo chairman.

ObjectVideo has been in the news a lot in the past year as it aggressively pursues patent licensing agreements, notably through litigation. While that effort will continue, Brown said he'll be spending more time developing the “products and capabilities moving forward.”

He also said OV will be looking at “growing into new business areas.” Brown said the company is not ready to discuss exactly what kind of new business it's interested in beyond saying it will involve “some great technology that definitely has applications in the security space.”

Brown comes to OV from Tyco Security Products, where he was VP of product management. He joined Tyco when Tyco acquired IntelliVid, a retail-focused video analytics company, in 2008.

While the analytics revolution that was expected five or six years ago “collectively didn't happen,” Brown said, there's now a “significant pickup [in interest] in analytics.”

That growth is being driven by the cost of computing coming down while analytics are becoming more sophisticated. “They're not trying to be magic CSI-type solutions, they're focused more on meeting core [security] needs of customers,” Brown said.

He expects OV's OEM business to flourish as more camera, NVR and hybrid manufacturers embed analytics into their core products. He said OV will be a “great partner” for companies that want a custom analytics portfolio.

“For security integrators [embedded analytics] eases installation, simplifies configuration, and just makes a lot of sense. That's where things are going,” he said.

What types of analytics are in demand? Customers are looking for analytics that deliver more intelligent alerts for alarms and certain events, Brown said, such as some classic perimeter analytics. “We have early intellectual property on that … and the analytics have been fine-tuned [to have a much lower false positive rate],” he added.

Interest is also growing in people-counting analytics, which are used for security and operational intelligence specifically in retail and gaming. Beyond knowing how many people are in a location and how they're moving about a space, people counting can be used to determine how much heating or cooling is used in a facility.

Brown also said the company is seeing growth in the use of OV analytics for “better, faster, forensic investigations.”