In a market segment where analog technology is quickly being replaced by IP video systems, Mobotix, a leading international manufacturer of digital, high-resolution and network-based video security systems, has far better growth prospects than most of its competitors since Mobotix decided not to offer any standard IP cameras, but to focus exclusively on high-resolution, complete systems.
In the decentralised system structure established years ago by Mobotix, the intelligence resides in the cameras themselves and not on a central PC. This enables Mobotix video systems to work with fewer cameras and system components, making them considerably more cost-effective than analog systems. For example: one single Mobotix camera can monitor an entire gas station with four lanes, recording the video for a full day in the camera itself. The complete system, including the camera and integrated software, recording and weatherproofing, costs less than €1,000 - significantly undercutting the price of an analog system.
The analog technology is restricted to just 0.4 megapixels for live images and usually 0.1 megapixels for recorded images - a tiny 1/30th of the resolution offered by the latest Mobotix models. With these resolution rates, analog systems require one camera for each gas station lane, as well as a PC with expensive software for recording of the images. The vast majority of IP camera manufacturers use the same image size and also the same centralised system structure as analog systems. Therefore, common IP technology fails to reduce the number of cameras and still requires a central PC with software, offering the user few advantages over a conventional analog solution. This is why these kinds of centralised IP systems are unlikely to replace analog systems on a large scale. Only Mobotix' decentralised concept is what makes high-resolution video monitoring profitable in the first place.
If legislators in individual countries were to succeed in their efforts to enforce a minimum image resolution above the 0.4 megapixel limit of analog systems, the entire conventional CCTV industry - including the cameras, recording technology and software - would be eliminated from the market. The same applies to IP manufacturers whose products are based on the same image and system structures as analog systems. The high-resolution systems from Mobotix, on the other hand, which have been recording the highest image quality in the megapixel range for years now, are not subject to such limitations. For this reason, Mobotix expects further growth in excess of 40 per cent.
