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Milestone's Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Eric Fullerton discusses the company's launch of a low-end VMS targeted for replacing DVR types of CCTV systems with IP video platforms.

Image courtesy Milestone Systems

Earlier this month, Milestone Systems announced the release of XProtect Essential, a video management system (VMS) designed for small business users. The company was known already for its XProtect VMS products that could scale up to handle thousands of video surveillance cameras, but this new release was specifically targeted for small video systems using 26 or fewer cameras and five or fewer users. The release of XProtect Essential comes as more and more VMS companies are offering platforms designed for small businesses' video integration projects. SecurityInfoWatch.com caught up with Milestone's Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Eric Fullerton to talk about what the release of Essential means for his company and how the market is changing for video management systems.

It seems that in the last year, and certainly with the launch of Essential, we have finally seen VMS systems become heavily introduced to the low-end market, why is this?

We believe that the value an IP-based solution can provide to end users in all categories is higher than traditional analog solutions and we want to offer this value to all segments of the market. We also believe that in the wake of the global financial crisis of the past few years end users will demand more than just a low price and will be looking for more current functionality in their surveillance solutions than they traditionally have done.

Clearly some of this product launch is about expanding Milestone's target markets. Is XProtect Essential designed to capture some of the traditional small DVR system market?

In Milestone Systems view no one should be forced to buy a DVR again based on budget constraints and therefore we see it as a natural thing to make the right products available to an in the right market segment. Eventually this may lead to our foot print in the market being expanded.

Will this version of your VMS be appearing on partners' NVRs as a pre-loaded software?

This is possible however no such deals have been struck as of yet.

For your resellers, how does this compare to your established VMS versions in terms of features? Is the pricing structure the only thing that is different here? Will it be easier and faster to configure than your other VMS offerings?

As this is a less-featured version than the other products we offer it will by nature be a bit simpler to install and use than our other products, however we strive towards ease of use and simplifying complexity with all our products.