Schools Turn To VARs For Surveillance, Security Solutions

But pick up a week's worth of crime reports from America's campuses today, and this is what you may find: An out-of-control crowd burned couches and flipped over cars on the strip after a big hoops win. A series of sexual assaults occurred on campus after a predator stalked female students via Facebook. And an emotionally unstable student made threats to his peers and teachers, and was found to be stockpiling weapons in his dorm closet.

It's not to say that college life in the past was blissfully idyllic. One only needs to recall the shooting rampage conducted by Charles Joseph Whitman high up in a tower at the University of Texas on Aug. 1, 1966, to realize that the prospect of serious crime and violence always existed. But, today, heightened awareness about the potential dangers of campus life--combined with the horrific shooting deaths of 32 people at Virginia Tech University last year--have forced college administrators to take unprecedented, proactive measures to ensure the safety of their campuses. Many are looking to take their campus video surveillance and emergency-alert systems into the digital age, to ensure a wider, more efficient response. And they're not necessarily solely motivated by a protective nature: These days for parents and students, the perceived safety of a campus factors nearly as large in the selection process as whether a university sends grads to high-paying jobs or top law schools. Which means safety has a direct impact on tuition dollars.

All of which has opened a promising niche for VARs.

Many are integrating IP-based technologies into campus security camera systems so data can be stored, analyzed and recalled at any given time. They're supplying solutions that can trigger instant emergency alerts that reach students on their handhelds and laptops. They're providing silent panic button systems--even what are called "robo-calls" that get word out to parents' cell phones about a developing incident--that also tap into the very latest in digital technology for enhanced efficiency. "No longer are alert and notification systems part of a 'phase two' in the process of IP communications implementation," said Greg T. Royal, executive vice president and CTO of Plano, Texas-based Cistera Networks Inc., which recently launched a VoIP-based communications/alert system with Georgia Perimeter College in greater Atlanta. "The Virginia Tech event caused everyone to pause and take stock of the implications including the legal fallout. Although we were selling these solutions before this incident, the demand has obviously increased, especially among larger campuses."

There's very little market research to statistically gauge and forecast this niche. Currently, IP-linked surveillance and notification systems are a small but growing presence in the overall surveillance/notification market for college campuses, which amounts to at least $100 million a year, according to Reston, Va.-based Input, a top government IT market-research firm. Closed-caption video still dominates. What's key will be whether these IP systems prove to be successful and whether industry-standard solutions emerge, said Chris Dixon, manager of state and local industry analysis for Input. "State budgets are tight," he said. "What vendors and resellers need to do is work with local officials and state officials to ensure this is incorporated as an overarching strategy. Right now, I'm seeing individual university campuses buying into these technologies, but not statewide university systems. That's what needs to happen for this market to take off."

VARs involved in this market, however, say the interest in these technologies is already well-established and that those who demonstrate a proven track record will be best positioned to prosper in the immediate future. While the Virginia Tech incident raised much awareness, VARs say, the actual demand for these solutions has been building for several years. Essentially, university decision-makers are realizing that they need to catch up to many of the technological advancements seen in high-security workplaces and even standard corporate campuses.

In the recent past, college institutions were relatively old school when it came to safety measures. University police patrolled the parking lots, dorms, campus buildings and intramural football fields for potential fights, break-ins, thefts and other incidents, without much thought given toward an integrated system of detection, analysis and follow-through. "Most campuses had basic security measures, but they were usually implemented in silos," said Andrew Wren, president of Jefferson City, Mo.-based Wren Solutions, which provides integrated video surveillance systems to college campus customers. "The bookstore might install a video surveillance solution, while across campus, the parking office would select an entirely different system. Even a decade ago, administrators never dreamed they'd be in the situation when they'd perform a campuswide lockdown in response to a shooting."

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Today, companies are swiftly moving into safety systems, even if they aren't primarily known as a security-systems company. Washington-based Blackboard Inc., for example, is well known for its education/campus life-related software packages. But it's found that the same technologies that enable, say, students to do their laundry without a need for pocket change, also translate well to safety solutions. In March, Blackboard introduced an IP-based video surveillance solution that allows image data to be stored on network drives or the digital video recorder, and can prompt immediate notification of incidents via e-mail or text message--a notification that can include video of the incident in question. While digitally based, the solution is still compatible with analog networks and cameras.

Rutherford, N.J.-based NICE Systems also found demand for its IP/digital video solutions on college campuses on the rise well before the Virginia Tech incident. The company now lists big-time campus customers such as the University of Mississippi, Vanderbilt University and North Carolina Aandamp;T among its customers. These colleges have bought into video systems with more integrated technologies, such as access control, ID badging capability and emergency communications, as opposed to individual, stand-alone applications. NICE solutions come with panic-button- styled emergency communications systems, and local police making the rounds there can receive video from any campus camera on their handheld devices. With financing available through U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants in many cases, many university officials have been eager to move forward with significant system upgrades, according to NICE. And it doesn't hurt that these campuses--given that they're devoted to higher learning--often already have the needed infrastructure in place.

"This has not only resulted in new customers, but our existing customers are upgrading and adding more and more cameras to their video management/recording solutions," said Chris Wooten, president of the Security Americas division of NICE Systems. "IP video is easily to implement on campuses these days because, typically, the IP network is already in place. An educational institution is a business. If students don't feel safe, that will affect a college's bottom line."

Even small, historic campuses are investing in the interest of safety. Buffalo, N.Y.-based VoIP Supply LLC has sold a VoIP hardware/software/services video surveillance package to Philippi, W.Va.-based Alderson-Broaddus College, a century-old institution with 635 students. The school's copper network was beyond capacity with respect to adding new users, so it sought to transfer everything over to a new IP network, given that its fiber loop was in use for more than four decades. With that kind of upgrade, it only seemed logical to college administration officials to buy into enhanced, digital security. "IP is all about convergence and integration, and campus communication and security should complement one another as part of an overall readiness strategy," said Cory Andrews, director of new market initiatives for VoIP Supply.

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When it comes to emergency alerts, college customers are looking more and more for the "total package," a solution that connects security communications with all of the tools of today--cell phones, handhelds and laptops--whether presented as an e-mail alert, a quick text message or a "robo call" to a cell phone. New York-based solution provider Dimension Data partners with IPCelerate, Carrollton, Texas, which has deployed such solutions for colleges, to provide paging systems that send text/voice alerts to phones in classrooms; recorded robo calls to students' and parents' phones and a wireless pendant "panic button" that teachers and security staff can wear around their necks to send a silent alert about an ongoing situation.

"We've been positioning notification systems for some time before the Virginia Tech situation, so we have established traction there," said Matthew Kershaw, national solutions manager at Dimension Data Americas. "The Columbine shootings actually were one of the earliest wake-up calls. Demand has been building since, although it takes time for education institutions to put the budgeting together."

Kanata, Ontario-based Mitel Networks Corp. is also finding rising demand for its IP-based emergency-response solutions, which also provide a silent Duress Alarm; a paging and broadcast feature that goes out to phones and speakers campuswide; HTML-based screen applications to both send out alerts to handheld devices and laptops, as well as access students' family-contact information and even medical records if needed; and mass voice/text notifications to parents, teachers and staff with just one call. With respect to the investigative side, Mitel solutions provide "call tagging," so staff can pinpoint, record, retrieve and archive ill-intended phone calls such as bomb threats.

"Many institutions of higher education have not had emergency preparedness plans in place," said Vani Naidoo, educations solutions marketing manager for Mitel. "For the small percentage that have had these plans, they did not have what is considered a detailed, comprehensive emergency plan. The school safety departments, for example, did not always engage with their IT departments in terms of defining what technologies needed to be in place. It's only after they have implemented the basic infrastructure that they can begin to leverage the value of a converged voice and data network to add on emergency response solutions."