Janne Jacobsen

Ava Parissay joined Milestone at its Danish headquarters in June as Senior Products Manager in the Professional Business Unit Milestone Systems aims to continue its position as the market leader for open platform IP video management software (VMS), the company has recently hired more strong players for managing sales in North America, Austria, Germany and Switzerland and the UK. A new Finance Manager has also come on board in the US and the fast-growing Bulgarian office has a new HR Manager. The Danish headquarters has hired a Product Manager and Marketing Manager, too. Mike Taylor is now the Director of Sales, North America, for Milestone Systems. Since July, he has been responsible for driving new business, tasked with expanding the local, regional and national integrator base and building out the consulting and Architects & Engineers (A&E) Program. He is also enlarging the field sales team who support our partner relationships. Taylor has been in the security industry for over 18 years in key roles that include Brivo Systems Senior Director of Sales and AMAG Technology Vice President of Sales, having started his career with ADT Security Systems. Gavin Archery is the new A&E Program Manager at Milestone Systems, based out of a London office. His background as a security industry specialist brings many years of experience from Philips Security Systems, Bewator (acquired by Siemens), and independent design and implementation of security systems. Through different roles, Archery has worked the entire security value chain from manufacturer to System Integrator to security consultant. As a member of the Security Institute and the Association of Security Consultants, he is well connected to the specifier (A&E) community, which will help to further develop Milestone’s A&E Program. Peter Grubauer is Milestone Country Manager DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) since May. He has extensive experience in selling and managing sales teams, from previous positions with Novell, Polycom, Tandberg, Cisco Systems, and Vidyo. He works with a motivational management style from a proven history of building, guiding and retaining high-performance teams to develop and implement strategies for accelerated growth. Chris Whitting is Milestone Country Manager UK & Ireland since June, and says: “I have been active in the security industry for over 15 years, bringing IP to market with CNL, Bosch and Sony. Milestone has the market-leading VMS product suite serviced through a well-defined channel, and with initiatives such as the Milestone Husky NVR launch and the encoder license program, I look forward to working with the UK team and Milestone partner community to continue our growth in the UK.” "Milestone has the market-leading VMS product suite serviced through a well-defined channel, and with initiatives such as the Milestone Husky NVR launch and the encoder license program" Ava Parissay joined Milestone Systems at the Danish headquarters in June as Senior Products Manager in the Professional Business Unit. With a B.A.Sc. Computer Engineering and M.B.A. from Simon Fraser University, she has worked more than ten years in the high-tech industry, most recently as Product Manager at Avigilon in Canada where she was responsible for the device portfolio and integration program. Prior to this, she was a Product Manager and Head of User Interface Design at Macdonald Dettwiler and Associates. “Ava will support our team in a number of activities across R&D, Sales and Marketing. She will take ownership of the strategic three-year roadmap for the Professional Business Unit,” says Janne Jacobsen, VP Professional Products, Milestone Systems. As of July, Anja Erntgaard has filled the new position of Milestone Marketing Project Manager in the Danish corporate office. Applying her background with Copenhagen Capacity (the Danish capital’s official organization for investment, promotion and business development), as well as Canon Denmark, she speaks Danish, English, German and Spanish, with broad experience in project management, design and layout, content management and email marketing, as well as video editing, and print production. Mark Pauley is the new Finance Manager, Americas, for Milestone Systems, Inc. in Beaverton, Oregon. He comes to Milestone from six years at Colgate-Palmolive where he was Senior Auditor, Financial Controller and Finance Manager. He has also worked for Navigant Consulting, Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young. Pauley served in the US Army including deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Saudi Arabia. He has a B.S. in Business Administration from Oregon State University, a minor in Pre Law and a CPA license. “Our Sofia office is a burgeoning location for product development of mobile and web solutions, test automation for our open platform VMS, device support for our camera partners,....." Yana Valchanova fills a new position as HR Manager, Bulgaria, one of the fastest growing Milestone offices with an employee count now over 50 after just three years. Valchanova holds a Masters in Social Psychology from South West University and a degree in Human Resource Management from the University of National and World Economy. She began as a Psychologist in Human Resources at Overgas Holding, handling recruitment and psychological testing, training and staff development, before moving on to Human Resource Manager at Bravo Ltd. and Senior HR Advisor at Skrill Holdings, where she developed company-wide HR strategies, policies and procedures. “Yana is an important new member in our global HR team. Her experience makes her a valuable business partner for Bulgaria’s organic and leadership growth, as well as for our objective of being a high-performing organization,” says Claudia Lillebjerg, VP HR at Milestone Systems. “Our Sofia office is a burgeoning location for product development of mobile and web solutions, test automation for our open platform VMS, device support for our camera partners, technical support staff and channel partner management. This is all part of Milestone’s strategic global expansions.”

The full range of Milestone XProtect 2014 software will be showcased in live presentations at the Milestone booth E800 Milestone Systems, the open platform company in IP video management software (VMS), is announcing the release of the Milestone XProtect 2014 VMS product suite for partners and customers. The XProtect 2014 product suite addresses the entire security market regardless of the size, complexity or location of the installation. The Milestone XProtect clients are also optimized and updated to take advantage of the new XProtect 2014 capabilities. The full range of Milestone XProtect 2014 software will be showcased in live presentations at the Milestone booth E800 at IFSEC International 2014 in London June 17-19. XProtect 2014 introduces several new advantages* for Milestone customers and the Milestone partner ecosystem. New smart integration abilities The Milestone add-on product, XProtect® Access Control Module 2014, makes it possible to integrate different access control systems within the same customer installation. XProtect® Smart Client provides a consolidated interface for operating integrated access control systems with dedicated functions to effectively monitor access events, manually assist passages and conduct investigations of specific access points or cardholders. Intelligent video handling with metadata Milestone introduces an ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum) compliant framework for handling and storing video-related metadata for its XProtect advanced VMS product range that includes XProtect® Corporate 2014 and XProtect® Expert 2014. Metadata is any data adding an information layer to video and audio streams. The metadata framework can enable new possibilities for high-level integration: integrators can use metadata to connect with all types of IT systems and Milestone Manufacturer Alliance Partners can use the metadata integration to support cameras with built-in analytics. "The 2014 update of the Milestone XProtect VMS suite reflects our dedication to provide solutions that are optimized for different market segments and customer needs" More efficient evidence handling workflow Video handling in XProtect 2014 is enhanced with new features to streamline the user experience: The Smart Search function utilizes the motion metadata generated during the motion detection analysis in the recording server. By searching on this generated metadata, sequences with motion in specific areas of a camera view can be found quickly and accurately, reducing the time required to conduct investigations. Evidence Lock is a new function in XProtect 2014 VMS that secures the availability of video recordings for investigations by allowing the retention time for selected video sequences to be extended beyond the defined retention policies. The Storyboard function turns video into evidence by documenting a sequence of events. Piecing together video sequences from multiple cameras into a structured flow makes object tracking easy for logical, objective and straightforward review. Extended system security A new security feature in XProtect is tiered administrator rights where administrative staff can be granted access to functions based on responsibility levels. Dual authentication provides an option for an additional level of system security, where a log-in or access is successful only when a second user approves it. Ease-of-Use features for partners and end users New ease-of-use features in XProtect 2014 VMS are centered on both Milestone partners and end users to ensure a simple and optimized experience working with a Milestone solution. For example, the product upgrade processes are enhanced to reduce time spent on maintaining the system. End users will benefit from a new interactive map functionality in XProtect® Essential and XProtect® Express that provides a graphical overview of the entire installation. Tooltips and customization possibilities are added to the XProtect Smart Client to lessen the need for end-user training. Video Push with GPS metadata in Milestone Mobile enables first responders and security personnel to use a smartphone as a mobile camera for video coverage of incidents not viewed by stationary cameras. The GPS coordinates together with the video stream are pushed from the smartphone to the XProtect VMS system. "The 2014 update of the Milestone XProtect VMS suite reflects our dedication to provide solutions that are optimized for different market segments and customer needs" Also of note is the Milestone Customer Dashboard, an online system monitoring service that enables Milestone resellers to obtain real-time system status of their customers’ installations. This enables proactive alerts and service to improve the customer experience. Janne Jacobsen, Vice President of Professional Products Business Unit at Milestone Systems, says: "The 2014 update of the Milestone XProtect VMS suite reflects our dedication to provide solutions that are optimized for different market segments and customer needs. For small to mid-sized installations, the 2014 edition of the XProtect Professional VMS product suite is focused on simplifying every step in the deployment and use of our products. The goal is to provide solutions that meet our customers’ demand for easy-to-use video solutions that are also cost efficient to install and grow." Bjørn Eilertsen, Vice President of Corporate Products Business Unit at Milestone Systems, says: "I am very excited about this 2014 release and the possibilities it gives both our customers and partners. If you look at the major enhancements we have done to the workflow around evidence handling, you will find that the new Smart Search, combined with Evidence Lock and the new storyboarding capabilities, shorten the time dramatically for producing evidence material. Add the new security capabilities that will make our advanced VMS products even more attractive for large and high-security installations. And this is just half of the story! We have also taken the open platform to a whole new level, introducing ONVIF-compliant support for metadata and a framework for integrating access control systems with our new XProtect Access Control Module. Both these initiatives empower our ecosystem of partners to develop new solutions and meet our customers’ needs." The Milestone XProtect 2014 product suite is available now through the Milestone partner network.