New Content Available from CONNECTIONS 2010 Speakers & Sponsors

The 2010 CONNECTIONS Speakers and Sponsors have shared marketing materials, product information, company media kits, and lots more.

The U.S CONNECTIONS Sponsors include Verizon Wireless, Cisco, Intel, Accenture, ActiveVideo Networks, Allegro, DivX, D-Link, Gigle Networks, Intamac, ProVision Communications, PacketVideo, RedMere, Rovi, Support.com, 4Home, Accedo Broadband, Affinegy, AlertMe, Arxan, IBM, iTOK, LEVEL Studios, PlumChoice, Vuze, Zenverge, and Roxio.

Speakers (that submitted information to share) include Cedric Arnaud-Battandier, VP, Strategy & Corporate Development, Technicolor; Cathy Bradley, Global Lead, Customer Contact Business Process Outsourcing Services, Accenture; Savinay Berry, Vice President, Granite Ventures; William C. Brown, Assoc. VP Technology and GM, Service Provider Business Unit, North America, D-Link; Mike Buckingham, Director of Marketing, SmartLabs, Inc.; Alfredo Choperena, President, SimpleHomeNet; Martin Flusberg, CEO, Powerhouse Dynamics; Todd Hinders, Senior Vice President, ExtendMedia; Scott Hublou, Co-Founder, SVP of Products, EcoFactor; Tony Masterson, COO, CTO and Co-founder, Zenverge; Kevin Meagher, CEO, Intamac Systems; Andy Melder, Vice President Business Development, Gigle Networks; Kevin Morgan, CTO, Arxan Technologies, Inc.; Tom Pollard, Director of Product Management, Verimatrix Inc.; Yaron Raz, Director of Video Solutions Marketing, BigBand Networks; Rick Schwartz, Senior Product Manager, PacketVideo (PV); Loren Shade, VP Marketing, Allegro Software Development Corporation; Melissa Simpler, CEO, Affinegy; Peter Smyth, CEO, RedMere; Steve Tranter, VP Interactive and Broadband, NDS; Edgar Villalpando, SVP, Marketing, ActiveVideo Networks; Dr. Kenneth Wacks, Member, GridWise Architecture Council, U.S. Department of Energy; and Nate Williams, CMO, 4Home.

To view all materials, click here.

Thank you 2010 U.S. Sponsors!

Parks Associates wanted to thank all of the U.S. CONNECTIONS sponsors for helping make 2010 another great event!

Reception: Verizon Wireless

Gold: Cisco, Intel

Silver: Accenture, ActiveVideo Networks, Allegro, DivX, D-Link, Gigle Networks, Intamac, ProVision Communications, PacketVideo, RedMere, Rovi, support.com

Bronze: 4Home, Accedo Broadband, Affinegy, AlertMe, Arxan, IBM, iTOK, LEVEL Studios, PlumChoice, Vuze, Zenverge

Breakfast: Roxio

Thank you again for your continued support!

Business Models for On-Demand Lifestyles

The CONNECTIONS Europe Summit afternoon begins with the Business Models for On-Demand Lifestyles panel moderated by Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates.

Where is profitability in the connected lifestyle? What are the “rules of engagement” (business, regulatory, consumer) for implementing access to new content and applications? This panel examines the critical factors for monetizing the connected lifestyle:

• Monetizing online content

• The role of advertising and other revenue-generating programs

• Understanding the needs of content producers and owners

• Application stores, microtransactions, and the mobile provider

Speakers include:
Wim Bus, Senior Vice President of Product Management & Operations, Civolution
Keith Donovan, Sales & Marketing Director, Intamac Systems
Rob Lewis, CEO, Omnifone
Theodore May, VP Content & Value Added Services, Synacor
Neerav Shah, VP Business Development, Verimatrix

The home management market – is the search for the killer application dead?

Supplemental Article by Intamac

The market for integrated home systems and controls has always been seen as attractive, but I’m coming to the opinion that it’s being held back by a fruitless search to find the holy grail of the sector, a “killer” application that will finally define the market.

Less glamorous though it may seem, I’m increasingly convinced the correct route to realizing the potential of the market is through simple, measured steps.

This view is supported by history. Remember those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it! Take the case of electricity. Modern life would be unthinkable without it, yet when electricity came along it was received initially with a muted response.

It was expensive, not least because the size of the infrastructure needed and the investment required to pipe electricity to properties made it difficult to roll out. Even where businesses were willing to make the investment, customers questioned the value. Consumers had gas and paraffin for light and generally went to bed when it got dark so they perceived it to be of little value.

So what made electricity an essential utility in every home wasn’t the fact that electricity could produce light. The market took off when companies like General Electric helped develop a mutually dependent ecosystem based on an increasingly pervasive network, reduced cost of service supply, and produced comparatively inexpensive electrical appliances that added value and made an electricity supply desirable to the consumer. It was initially refrigerators, heaters, irons, and cookers and later food mixers, air conditioners, and entertainment devices that made electricity essential in any home.

The point is that there was no single killer application; it was the availability of a wide range of applications that spurred growth in the whole ecosystem. In this respect the parallels with the growth of broadband are striking as it moves from being an access point to a network of networks to becoming an essential utility in any property.

Broadband did not appeal to everyone initially when it was only providing faster access to web pages on a PC. It has been growth in the applications and their associated devices - the equivalent of the electricity market’s appliances - and the associated fall in cost of access and the ability to pipe broadband around the property - particularly through wireless LANs - that has driven broadband to reach more homes.

In particular, it has been the ability to use broadband for entertainment applications that has been the real driver to date. Now, home networking and e-commerce applications are further building the ecosystem. There is, however, another phase of growth to come with pervasive low-cost broadband - the advent of inexpensive devices that will exploit broadband to deliver convenience, comfort, and care in the home. This is the phase in which home management will finally realize its potential.

Internet platforms will provide the key building blocks in the ecosystem needed to enable this new phase of growth. Creating the platform to do this is the difficult bit, but it’s what Intamac has devoted itself to, so I’m seeing the impact close at hand. Intamac’s work with partners such as BT, IAG (Australia and New Zealand’s largest insurance company), and Cisco Linksys to develop and bundle a new range of innovative and affordable products and services for home suggests that this approach can work and the market is ready.

For example, using the platform with BT, we have developed a broadband home monitoring service that can be installed by the user with a complete system retailing for under £200. This provides the consumer with new levels of protection in the home and the ability to remotely manage their systems for low monthly fees. It is possible to integrate easily cameras and have pictures sent to mobiles with online video storage capabilities. Companies such as BT are able to scale up offerings with attractive support packages that generate recurring revenues from a mass market customer base.

Enabled by the platform approach, these products and services are a first step in a huge growth market. Intamac is working to network a wide portfolio of partner products and to help add features that will allow them to be deployed into new and attractive segments such as telecare and utility and appliance management.

For an infrastructure point of view, while it is clear that web platforms like Intamac’s are being recognized as key nodes in the new ecosystem, it is the advent of low-cost wireless networking with technology such as Z-Wave and ZigBee, low-cost IP cameras at under £100 retail, and solutions for remote management of routers that will also drive the market. That’s’ what we’ll need to get to grips with when we all meet at CONNECTIONS™ in June.

This article was published for the 2008 CONNECTIONS™ Conference Industry Insights, the official publication of CONNECTIONS™.

INTAMAC AND DSC TYCO PARTNER TO DELIVER NEW WEB BASED INTERACTIVE SERVICE

Toronto, Canada and Northampton, UK 12 May 2008 - Intamac Systems has announced a distribution agreement with DSC that will see the launch of their new web based interactive services into the North American market. The new services will be launched on the DSC stand at the International Fire and Security Exhibition in Birmingham today.

As part of the agreement, Northampton-based Intamac has built a new support platform in Toronto. This will now be used to provide monitoring and messaging services to DSC’s customers and to support the launch of a range of innovative new security products and video solutions to their dealer and central station network. This move will position the DSC and Intamac as the leaders in the interactive service market and broadband enabled products.

The Intamac platform will allow DSC to offer new IP video and security solutions to their dealer network. In addition, the platform will provide customers with web interfaces through which they can manage their clients and offer them a range of new interactive services. In addition to the benefits of a home monitoring service designed to provide timely information with video of any unexpected entry or event, consumers can remotely manage and monitor routine events in real-time that occur within the home every day.

Consumers can customise their home monitoring service to be alerted via phone, e-mail or text message to monitor events such as: children coming home safely for school; the activities of tradespeople, cleaners, nannies, au pairs or elderly relatives; alerts from water and smoke detectors. The platform also provides for the future growth with remote management and control of domestic heating and electrical systems and the devices attached to them.

“The Intamac platform allows us to offer our partners innovative new services that will help grow their business and excite the consumer” comments David Grinstead, VP Sales. “We are working to leverage the benefits of broadband and working to make it simple for our dealer network to adapt and exploit IP video and monitoring solutions.”

Kevin Meagher, CEO of Intamac adds “Our platform will allow DSC to deploy exciting new value added services at attractive price points as well as simplifying the task of installation and support. We are binging new levels of intelligence to the home and making home monitoring a must-have service. We are delighted to be working with DSC, a global leader in security products to realise the potential of this growing market.”

Intamac wins prestigious European Business Awards

Intamac wins prestigious European Business Awards -

Business Innovation of the Year, 2008 …plus two Ruban d’Honneur’s Ribbons…

Intamac Systems, the specialists in home and security monitoring solutions has won the European Business Awards - ‘Business Innovation of the Year Award’. It also received two Ruban d’Honneurs ribbons, for Business Innovation and Entrepreneur of the Year. The award ceremony was held in Paris on 11 March 2008.

The European Business Awards was set up to recognise and reward excellence, best practice and innovation in companies across the 27 EU member states. It serves to showcase Europe’s most successful business achievements.

Intamac have utilised the World Wide Web to revolutionise the capabilities and reduce the cost of home monitoring and security systems. The Intamac solution offers a unique combination of innovative technology, practical purpose and ease of use. In light of this, the company has already secured major contracts with large international players, including BT, and Australia and New Zealand’s largest general insurer, IAG. Intamac’s technology has also been adopted in a number of high street products by companies such as Linksys and Yale.

European Business Awards CEO Adrian Tripp said, “Intamac has the potential to completely shakeup the traditional home security industry. It is providing some very strong businesses not presently in the home security market with excellent new technologies and business models to challenge the existing players.” Intamac was selected over a shortlist of ten International businesses such as British Telecom, Deutsche Post and Daimler AG.

Intamac’s CEO and founder, Kevin Meagher commented, “We are delighted to win the Business Innovation of the Year Award. It demonstrates that our work in providing innovative monitoring solutions at an affordable price is being recognised outside the UK. We are an Innovation led company, which is constantly driving for growth and has a strong customer focus. We are honored to have won this renowned award against such strong global competition”.

Intamac’s services are currently available through global partners such as Cisco, BT, Yale and IAG, and through leading retailers such as Homebase and PC World or by visiting http://www.intamac.com/

Intamac Systems & DSC Become Platinum Sponsors

CONNECTIONS announces new platinum sponsors, Intamac Systems Ltd. & DSC.

Intamac Systems Ltd. is the global leader in Internet based monitoring, messaging and control services. Founded in 2000, and based in Northampton UK, the company has developed an Internet-based communications platform that allows consumers to remotely monitor and control devices in their home. Intamac has signed contracts with major corporate partners who use their broadband services to increase ARPU, leverage broadband and reduce customer churn.

With an established customer base on 3 continents, Intamac have been recognised for market leading innovation: Winner of the 2003 British Security Industry Association Excellence Awards for Best Innovation, winner of Digital Home Magazine 'Best online home service' and a Red Herring “Top 100” company for 2006. Intamac is committed to innovating with new technology products and services to improve the lives of people at home and at work. http://www.intamac.com/

Digital Security Controls Ltd. (DSC) is an industry leader in the design and manufacture of electronic intrusion alarm products. The DSC brand is recognized for superior quality and performance in over 140 countries worldwide. DSC includes intrusion alarm control panels, intrusion alarm detection devices and alarm communication products and services.

Founded in 1979, their success has been a result of an unwavering commitment to continually bring new standards of reliability, flexibility, performance and value to products for the professional security installer. DSC has a proud history of innovation, having introduced the industry's first micro-processor-based alarm panel, the PC2000, and the award winning Power832 that set a new standard for performance, flexibility and value. http://www.dsc.com/

Additional CONNECTIONS sponsors and supporting organizations/media can be viewed here: http://www.parksassociates.com/events/connections/2008/sponsors/sponsors.htm

Using technology to liberate not enslave our children

These are strange times for parents. We live in a world where a child is mysteriously snatched from a room whilst her holidaying parents eat dinner a few metres away whilst teenagers shoot each other in the inner cities. We know rationally that there isn't a child snatcher or gun-toting `hoodie` hiding round every corner. But we increasingly behave as if serious threats to our children are all around us, just waiting to catch us unawares.

The everyday stuff of our own youth such as walking to school alone, playing in the streets, crossing the town unaccompanied or just going off to play with friends now seems to pose huge dangers.

A recent report from the UK Children's Society warns that parents' fears about safety are stopping children from playing outdoors unsupervised. And, unsurprisingly it shows how today's parents are not giving their children the freedom to roam that they enjoyed in their own childhoods in the 1970s.

Why are we such paranoid parents? Why do we worry at the idea of our confident, outwardly worldy mobile using, Powerpoint presenting, technology-savvy kids even walking on their own to school - when we were making my own way at even younger ages?

Maybe it's because we live in a society where it’s difficult to gets things in proportion and where insecurity is pushed at us from all directions.

With a background of car alarms, police sirens and the continual media diet of bad news and sensationalism we are driven to form a particular view of reality – that seldom accords actually with our own experience. What we know rationally to be the exception feels more like the norm producing an unrealistic view of the potential threats that may surround us.

But because we care most about our children, we worry most about them. And in the UK the amount of time we spend worrying about them is increased by a vigorous nanny state foisting ever more intrusive health and safety legislation upon us, fear of litigation and a growing compensation culture.

This means that parents and teachers alike are less and less likely to take the responsibility for supervising sports days, school trips or even neighbourhood activities. It’s this that further isolates children from the sort of life experiences we enjoyed. Climb a tree? You can’t be serious - just think of the potential consequences!

Of course there are real worries - like danger inherent in the vast increase in traffic in the last 30 years. It’s true that scores of people are injured by hit and run drivers every single week in our major cities. But then of course our offspring aren’t being conscripted to be slaughtered in vast numbers in world wars or dying en masse of childhood diseases either.

What’s the root cause that makes our generation of parents seemingly too fearful to let our children play out of our sight? Maybe it's because we might know a lot about the security situation in Afganistan and the current vagaries of the financial markets but do we don’t know who lives in our street. We’re isolated and isolation breeds suspicion. And so much of our isolation has been made possible by the technology that we surround ourselves with – cars, radio, television, video games and so on – that put up barriers to real communication.

We see this effect even in our traditional attitude to the systems choose to monitor our own homes. Such systems certainly serve to isolate us further, so it’s a moot point as to how effective they are. Sirens so loud that they are designed to attract the attention of patrolling police vehicles heighten anxiety and systems link directly to remote control centres by passing those around us. That is until the latest false alarm causes the police to refuse to attend and further activations further increasing our fear.

The last thing we think of these days is involving our neighbours in the protection of our property and, by implication, our families. Yet by using the right technology we can start to reestablish the sense of trust and mutual dependency that underpins the strongest of communities. Indeed it can give us structure and information that will keep the worst of our anxieties at bay.

We can’t return to past but we can take advantage of what’s available now to try and restore some balance in our lives. For instance, the same technology that often serves to divide us can be a platform to unite us. If an automated internet-based system can send you or your neighbour a simple text or drop you and email when a family member returns home and knowing this or you or your neighbour can call round or even have a quick check in a web cam to see what they are up to when they return, we might start worrying a whole lot less and begin to convince ourselves that we shouldn’t become prisoners of our own paranoia. Then we might be more ready to take the risks that will enable our children to be released from being enslaved by a sedentary existence that extends little beyond the confines of the car, computer and television.

Time for us to work together so our children to get out and about again. Just don’t get me started about the threat from virtual worlds…

Remote Home Monitoring

Summary information from Day 2: CONNECTIONS™ May 2007, hosted in Santa Clara, CA

Is the market for remote home monitoring real, or is it just niche play? This panel discusses go-to-market strategies that are working, who is buying, why, and what's next.

Brad Bridges, Assistant Vice President-Business Development, AT&T
Bill Diamond, President, Xanboo, Inc.
Andrew Hartsfield, CEO, WiLife, Inc.
Kevin Meagher, CEO, Intamac Systems Ltd
Duane Paulson, President, Sequel Technologies, LLC
Reza Raji, Founder and CEO, iControl Networks, Inc.
Moderator: Bill Ablondi, Director, Channel Research, Parks Associates


Specific Questions to Address:

• Will this market gain traction with mainstream Internet users?
• How critical is video surveillance to the service offering?
• What are the applications that motivate consumers to buy self-monitoring systems today
• Is security the main application, or is it pet watching or monitoring elderly family members?
• Is monitoring the elderly the looming "killer app”? What will be the most popular applications?
• What has been the experience of service providers in this market? With revenue possibilities seemingly low to moderate, how do providers view monitoring services?
• Will self-monitoring services complement or displace professional security monitoring services?
• The big security monitoring firms are not going to sit still and watch their revenue erode.
• What will be their reaction to the activity in self-monitoring?
• What is the best way to penetrate the vacation and second-home market?

The panelists in this session had a wide-ranging discussion on the market opportunities for remote home monitoring and control. Not all were addressing the market in the same manner. Intamac is working with service providers, e.g., British Telecom and Bell Canada, to turn the business of security monitoring on its head. Duane Paulson a seasoned security systems executive, explained how Sequel Technologies will work with security systems installers to provide monitoring capabilities rather than forcing end users into a monthly service contract. Andrew Hartsfield said that most people are motivated by security concerns to buy a WiLife system, but once installed, the camera(s) are used for everything from watching pets while at work to keeping an eye on potential parking spaces in front of a city apartment.

Xanboo has been pursuing the home monitoring market for many years and has tweaked its systems so they can be sold on a stand-alone basis or as part of a service package, as AT&T is doing. Brad Bridges of AT&T said he was pleased with the adoption of their Home Monitor package and thought that Parks Associates’ forecast was too conservative. Reza Raji of iControl agreed, stating that his firm was on the verge of announcing several partnerships with service providers that will build consumer awareness and expand the market.

The home management market – is the 'in search' for the killer application dead?

The market for integrated home systems and controls has always been seen as attractive but I’m coming to the opinion that it’s being held back by a fruitless search to find the holy grail of the sector, a ‘killer’ application that will finally define the market.

Less glamorous though it may seem, I’m increasingly convinced that route to realising the potential of the market is through simple, measured steps.

This view is supported by history. Remember those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it! Take the case of electricity. Modern life would be unthinkable without it, yet when electricity came along it was received initially with a muted response.

It was expensive, not least because the size of the infrastructure needed and the investment required to pipe electricity to properties made it difficult to roll out. Even where businesses were willing to make the investment, customers questioned the value. Consumers had gas and paraffin for light and generally went to bed when it got dark so they perceived it to be of little value.

So what made electricity an essential utility in every home wasn’t the fact that electricity could produce light? The market took off when companies like General Electric helped develop a mutually dependent ecosystem based on an increasingly pervasive network, reduced cost of service supply and produced comparatively inexpensive electrical appliances that added value and made an electricity supply desirable to the consumer. It was initially refrigerators, heaters, irons and cookers and later food mixers, air conditioners and entertainment devices that made electricity essential in any home.

The point is that there was no single killer application; it was the availability of a wide range of applications that spurred growth in the whole ecosystem. In this respect the parallels with the growth of broadband are striking as it moves from being an access point to a network of networks to become an essential utility in any property.

Broadband did not appeal to everyone initially when it was only providing faster access to web pages on a PC. It has been growth in the applications and their associated devices - the equivalent of the electricity market’s appliances - and the associated fall in cost of access and the ability to pipe broadband around the property - particularly through wireless LANs - that has driven broadband to reach more homes.

In particular, it has been the ability to use broadband for entertainment applications that has been the real driver to date. Now, home working and e-commerce applications are further building the ecosystem. There is, however, another phase of growth to come with pervasive low-cost broadband - the advent of inexpensive devices that will exploit broadband to deliver convenience, comfort and care in the home. This is the phase in which home management will finally realise its potential.

Internet platforms will provide the key building blocks in the ecosystem needed to enable this new phase of growth. Creating the platform to do this is the difficult bit but it’s what Intamac has devoted itself to, so I’m seeing the impact close at hand. Intamac’s work with partners such as BT, Bell Canada and Cisco Linksys to develop and bundle a new range of innovative and affordable products and services for home suggests that this approach can work and the market is ready.

Using the platform, for example, with BT we have developed a broadband home monitoring service that can be installed by the user with a complete system retailing for under £200. This provides the consumer with new levels of protection in the home and the ability to remotely manage their systems for low monthly fees. It is possible to integrate easily cameras and have pictures sent to mobiles with online video storage capabilities. Companies such as BT and Bell are able to scale up offerings with attractive support packages that generate recurring revenues from a mass market customer base.

Enabled by the platform approach, these products and services are a first step in a huge growth market. Intamac is working to network a wide portfolio of partner products and to help add features that will allow them to be deployed into new and attractive segments such as telecare, and utility and appliance management.

For an infrastructure point of view whilst its clear that web platforms like Intamac’s are being recognised as key node in the new ecosystem it is the advent of low cost wireless networking with technology such as Z-Wave and Zigbee, low-cost IP cameras at under £100 retail, and solutions for remote management of routers that will also drive the market. That’s’ what we’ll need to get to grips with when we all meet at Connections in December.