Dog House: Why IBM Does Not Want Your Security Dollars

IBM is marketing two types of physical security product. One is the Smart Surveillance Solution - a set of video surveillance management capabilities including analytics, storage, point-of-sale (POS) integration, etc. The other product is a repackaging of an event management console by CNL, a UK software company.

I've been watching IBM stammer and stumble into the physical security market with the Smart Surveillance System and the PSIM product from CNL. Both attempts are half-baked with inscrutable go-to-market strategies and inconsistent value propositions.

At the City of Chicago, for example, the IBM portion of the city wide video deployment was reportedly a train wreck. One source in the city told me that IBM consultants "walked around like they had no idea what they were doing." Another source said "I don't think they've ever seen a video camera before." (Happy IBM physical security customers are a bit hard to find.)

The IBM booth at ASIS in Las Vegas this year was not very confidence-inspiring either. The IBM sales guys were happy to pitch their elevator drabble, but when asked any substantive value proposition or technology questions, not a soul could get under the covers.

There were definitely some bright IBM'ers at the booth. Don't get me wrong. But they were fellows who were still clearing the fog for themselves about what IBM could do and how they would deliver it. I have confidence in certain individuals at IBM, like Len Johnson and Ray Cooke. But I don't have confidence in IBM. I'm not convinced that a few bright lights like Johnson and Cooke can illuminate the dark halls of IBM Global Services.

...and since we are still wondering why IBM is doing everything in its power to NOT collect your security dollars, IBM Global Services is the newest inductee into the SecurityDreamer Dog House.

Comments

[John Honovich]

Hi Steve,

I think what we are hearing are symptoms and consequences of a more fundamental problem for IBM. S3's technology architecture (J2EE framework) is a mismatch for the business needs of physical security.

This type of architecture is optimal for customers handling complex workflows involving millions of high value transactions that must succeed. This architecture is legendary for its complexity and its expensiveness. It is no suprise, then, that most technology users have migrated to using lower cost, simpler frameworks (Spring, .NET, LAMP, Rails, etc.) except for the super high end users that really needs IBM/J2EE features.

In other uses of this architecture, you would do this to leverage and provide a front end for your legacy information systems/mainframes or this architecture would be most of the solution. In either case, the business value is high because it allows you to reach customers and generate business not possible before. And you could justify the immense cost of it.

By contrast, for physical security users, the IBM architecture still requires you to buy everything you are buying today. It does not cut other system costs or enable you to look at live video remotely or get an alert if a perimeter violation goes off (You can do all of that today without IBM).

Plus, what does it allow you to do that you cannot do with existing systems or leading video management products? I think IBM's hope is that you can use their querying interface to construct custom queries using inputs from a variety of analytics to identify security problems that are impossible to discover today (thereby justifying their worth).

While it's very clear that their approach makes this very expensive (because of the customization involved), it's equally unclear what they can solve that's new and different.

Honestly, I feel bad for the people at IBM. It's tough to succeed when your solution just does not fit.

On the other hand, the good news for them is that they can scrap this and focus on where the value is really being generated. A few ideas:

- Reduce the cost per camera: As camera counts grow, scaling the cost and management of this is critical. By handling significantly greater densities, for instance, Steelbox can enable physical security buyers to more productively converge to IP video surveillance.
- Reduce the complexity of managing analytics: Physical security buyers need analytics to be less expensive and simpler to manage across their facilities. Building analytics into the video management platform, like 3VR does, makes analytics more plug-n-play and financially viable to physical security users.

Steve, it's great that you called this out and hopefully IBM can truly rise to the occassion and deliver a solution that holds up their legacy.

Best,

John

[Brad Black]

Steve,

I noticed the same thing all the way back at ISC West. I asked the reps on the floor what they were doing there and never received much of an intelligible answer.