ASG's Security Solutions Blog

Performance Demands a Platform - AMAG takes Standards to a Platform Level

 

By Ron Worman, The Sage Group 

As the Great Conversation moves forward illuminating the path to 2020, Matt Barnett, the VP of Sales and Marketing for AMAG remembers the first 10 years of the millennium.

All the systems were silos", said Barnett. "CCTV, alarm monitoring, badging..they were all separated and costly. What was once a $35,000 badging solution from Polaroid, is now a give-away in our lower end solution."

Barnett agrees with many of our other sponsors in that the power of deployed standards can move the industry from a ‘early stage' mentality to the ‘way things are done'. "The game changers start with our keynotes speaking at the Summit advocating a one system solution under a single user interface", said Barnett. "But make no mistake, the game change becomes a reality when large companies or government agencies begin deploying. The specs from those deployments, the ad-hoc and established industry standards will move this industry forward."

Barnett suggests that the next inflection point is the credential. He suggests the government has deployed and tested the new card technology which is now "an intelligent device" and it is now moving to the private sector. "Now it is up to the Fortune 500", says Barnett.

According to AMAG, the mission of the company is to offer intelligent networked solutions scaled to manage access control and security management challenges from small to multi-national organizations. The term ‘tight integration' is used to imply seamless communication between their various technologies (access control, video, visitor management, smart card and biometrics) all on one single platform.

"We have also re-wrapped our entire product line to become a major player in the video surveillance market", said Barnett. "We are operating from a philosophy toward storing at the edge and only send when needed."

With new abilities to update firmware at the encoder, with new standards to make video more efficient as well as more useful, and with new advances in serving, delivering, and storing video, AMAG expects the way they deliver their solutions to the market will change.  "It is not your Daddy's AMAG anymore", said Barnett. "People now know us as a key game changer in the industry, not the old name we started with. And they know us through our work and our references. We invest our money in relationship and products, not marketing. And because of that we have a wider and deeper breadth than most in this market."

And an open system has been a part of AMAG for years. "We were working with XML before many of the established vendors", said Barnett.  But, according to Barnett, at the end of the day, the best thing that can happen to an end user of security is to perform a benchmark, live, among their final vendors before making a decision. Barnett suggests an old-fashioned ‘shoot out'. "Tell them to ask all of us: Show me what you have and prove it. Benchmark the feature set, the ease of use, the level of integration, and, most of all, our level of service."

AMAG will be delivering this message through our Virtual Exhibit Hall where you can pick up their Digital Reality Trust Case Study as well as get acquainted with their products.