Panasonic has acquired Cameramanager.com, which provides video surveillance-as-a-service (VSaaS) solutions for customers across Europe.
The company was founded in 2007 by Tijmen Vos and Rishi Lodhia. The Amsterdam-based company’s acquisition by Panasonic was announced during a press conference at The Rembrandt Tower in Amsterdam on Friday. IFSECGlobal.com was in attendance.
As a result of the acquisition, the Cameramanager.com team — which has customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Brazil, Latvia, Russia, and Turkey — will now join forces with Panasonic Europe. Laurent Abadie, chairman and CEO of Panasonic Europe, explained:
This acquisition is an important strategic step towards enhancing our smart and connected services offering in the European and CIS market.
With Cameramanager.com’s bespoke software and cloud-based solutions complementing our existing security business, we will be able to significantly enhance our presence in this space by bringing together technical know-how and software skills that equip us with the necessary assets to be able to respond to future demands in cloud services.
Abadie highlighted Panasonic’s deliberate move towards total solutions and the fact that the company will “never lose sight of the importance of innovation.”
As far as Abadie’s concerned, Cameramanager.com is “the perfect partner” for Panasonic, allowing the company to create a whole new business platform around cloud services for the B2B and B2C marketplaces.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Also attending the press conference was Masaki Arizono, the managing director of Panasonic System Communications Company Europe, alongside Jose Riolobos, European head of professional camera solutions in Europe, and Jeroen Cleijne, security product marketing manager for Europe.
Perspectives from Cameramanager.com
The CEO of Cameramanager.com, Rishi Lodhia, told journalists:
Since its inception in 2007, Cameramanager.com has gone from strength to strength, and we’re now ready to take the next step in the company’s development by joining forces with Panasonic to bring end-to-end, cloud-based surveillance to a wider market. Our values are so closely aligned to those of Panasonic. Together, we remain committed to delivering excellence in online security. As well as providing great solutions for the end customer, we also want to create new business for security installers and integrators.
At the moment, Cameramanager.com manages over 40,000 bespoke camera connections on a global basis. The company offers cloud-based camera surveillance connections to PCs, Macs, smartphones, and tablets.
Lodhia continued:
Our corporate culture at Cameramanager.com is all about CATCH — We’re Creative and entrepreneurial, Ambitious, Team players, Customer-driven and both Honest and Humble. We genuinely believe we can be the leading cloud management company in the world.
Lodhia’s colleague Tijmen Vos spoke of the three pillars of Cameramanager.com:
We are 100% about the cloud. We have never had software installed on the customer side. Also, we’re all about an open API. Last but not least, it’s about ‘Smart’. In other words, smart messaging.
Find out more about Panasonic System Communications Company Europe.
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It is awesome to see Panasonic taking a bite out of the cloud and starting to build more of a position within the cloud. More and more applications and services move to the cloud so this makes sense just the next logical step in forward progression.
A natural progression in this age of fantastically fast-moving technology! CameraWatch could see it coming for some time and it’s great to see a major player take on a very active part. Aye there’s always a BUT…. as I have said in many blogs and presentations – let’s just make sure that we are aware (and I really mean legally compliant) of the legal requirements and yes restrictions of using “the Cloud”. We can’t just say “Oh, it’s in the Cloud and it’s all fine” or “We don’t need to worry about it ‘cos it’s in the Cloud and it’s… Read more »
A brave new world, indeed. All the usual compliance measures apply of course, but I would add that I hope any data being transported into the cloud is being encrypted to mitigate against the risk of it being breached in transit.
One word I never use when talking about data protection compliance for CCTV is “assume”. The word “hope” is not far from that Rob with regard to compliance. A CCTV system is either compliant with the law or it is not. Seems harsh I know but that’s the way it is. And that has major issues for CCTV images used as evidence. If that isn’t compliant in all aspects of the managing of the images from first capture to production in court – well we have a problem, a huge problem. And that problem is with us right now and… Read more »
It’s a great point, and a good question. Why do we assume it’ll all be OK in the end? It’s a little like the builder who constructs a building without planning permission, hoping he’ll get retrospective planning. He might, but he also might not and then he’ll have to tear the building down.
Acquisition of Cameramanager.com by Panasonic is for getting total solution of security service. Let’s see how Panasonic could provide better solution to its end user by acquiring technical know-how and software skills of Cameramanager.com.
Here comes another entrant in the Cloud market. I think it’s actually a good thing, considering it’s not always bad to have one more option or alternative to choose from.
agree, in my humble opinion Cloud is the future and Panasonic is on the right track… how I see it… as everyone in the market one way or other moving towards cloud…
I think there’s still some reticence towards the cloud. People have real concerns over the securit of their data in the cloud which need to be addressed. That it is the future though, is indisputable.
yes, Rob it human nature, but with time pass… we will accept the cloud…