This is a research note from Aaron Dale, analyst for Video Surveillance and Blake Kozak, principal analyst for Security and Building Technologies at IHS Inc., providing insight on the recent acquisition of Brivo by Eagle Eye Networks’s Dean Drako.

Eagle Eye Networks’s Dean Drako acquires Brivo – What does this mean for the industry?

The acquisition of Brivo by Eagle Eye Networks’s Dean Drako is yet another example of consolidation in the security industry. What makes this a unique case is that a cloud-based video provider is expanding into cloud-based access control. While we have seen acquisitions of providers of cloud-services, e.g. Kaba and Keyscan and Avigilon with RedCloud, this is a first.

The access control as a service (ACaaS) market is estimated to top $200 million in the Americas by the end of 2015. This equates to more than 350,000 existing doors of hosted, managed, or hybrid doors in 2015. For video surveillance as a service (VSaaS), IHS estimated the global market will be worth more than $900 million in 2015.

For VSaaS, this acquisition will build upon Eagle Eye Network’s current stake in the VSaaS market, a market that IHS forecast’s to reach nearly $1.3 billion globally by 2017 and is currently receiving renewed interest from the video surveillance industry. However, the true value in the acquisition is unlikely to come from Eagle Eyes’ ability to further penetrate the VSaaS market, rather in strengthening its ability to provide a more complete cloud based security offering.

For the ACaaS market, although more end-users are accepting the cloud as a secure option to meet their needs, integration in the cloud has not been seen yet, to any great extent. Integration of video and access control remains a mega trend for traditional deployments. However, integrating these systems in the cloud remains difficult and few suppliers offer of this.

Most systems claim remote management and viewing of access control and video events; however, storage is typically local. IHS expects integration in the cloud will reduce risk to the system by limiting cross firewall activity; however, solutions residing and integrating in the cloud is still several years away, despite the perceived benefits.

While there has been limited cloud integration of video and access control, the residential security market is making big strides in the direction of cloud based security – where decisions are made and devices talk in the cloud rather than at a hardware level in the home.

Although Eagle Eye Networks and Brivo are limited in the residential space, IHS expects that the access control and video markets will see integration in the cloud in the coming years, especially as more end-users demand a unified solution, e.g. using one software to manage the access control and video solutions.

What does this mean for the access control industry? IHS believes the access control industry will continue to move closer to open standards and cloud-based solutions; however, the process will remain slow as the larger suppliers look to remain proprietary and create closed ecosystems to protect market share. This acquisition is interesting since it brings together two companies which are focused on open API and the cloud; as a result, this could be a blueprint and a preview of things to come.