Good afternoon and welcome to Axis Tech Talk Show. My name is Monica Musca and I am here today with Bogdan Gavril, Sales Engineer and Trainer Axis Academy Hello and welcome everyone. Our special guest today is Bogdan Mihalcea, Country Manager ATEN Romania. Hello Monica, Bogdan. I am really happy to be here today. ATEN has more than 40 years experience in terms of connectivity and hundreds of patents.
A couple of years ago ATEN was internationally recognizes for its KVM line-up. I will invite now Bogdan to talk about the company evolution How it evolved into creating streaming, control and other application devices. We are indeed recognized mainly due to our KVM line-up. It all started 40 years ago, with this product segment.
And during all these years, we became the number 1 manufacturer of KVM. A KVM is a device that can control a desktop, laptop or server, remotely, using video, a mouse and a keyboard. These devices are mainly used in datacenters and control rooms, where we have multiple systems in place. And we only have one operator which needs to work on all those systems.
All of our knowhow that we have gathered in the last 40 years we have extended In the last 10 years, our PRO AV products and solutions have grown exponentially. And the equipment's that we are offering, like video matrix, transmitters, receivers, converters. Are used also on remote applications or digital signage, expending our portfolio. And we didn't stop here. We had a lot of equipment's that we could control. We felt the need to give also to the operator the possibility to control the non-IT devices.
Like air conditioning installations, lights or even electric installations. We have developed a Black Box that allows the interconnectivity with all these protocols The control being now extended to non-IT products. Another step that we have take was the Green Energy approach. We have developed our portfolio of PDU devices. And because we wanted to be a one-stop shop, we have bought a company that is specialized in the manufacturing of metal cabinets. Lets move the discussion to public and smart city sectors.
The digitalization requires integrability. It is all about the components that you integrate in a system. In order to have the right tools for the job. And this is required to be able to increase the quality life of the citizens.
Or to install and implement security elements inside a city. And of course it is important to see and analyze what are the citizens requirement for the area they live in. For example what should be done to improve the traffic and increase its security And all these data should be correlated with information related to the air quality. These values have to be kept under control and act rapidly when some barrier is passed. And I will add something. Let's not forget the purpose of the digitalization.
The main purpose is to offer to the citizens an increased comfort. And here there are three parts that are involved. The first element is the actual citizen. The second element is composed of companies that are offering technologies.
And the third element are the public authorities that has the select the right technology companies to implement projects. The main challenge for the public authority is to correctly define the objectives of this digitalization. To what level is required to go. And than to find the right technology suppliers. From my perspective, the digitalization process involves multiple technologies.
It is almost impossible to find one vendor to cover everything. The digitalization requires a collaboration between brands. And putting together products and solutions from multiple brands: like Green energy, surveillance, access control, AI All these should be implemented wisely, in such a way to deliver a complete solution. Let's discuss now about some concrete solutions that involves using different technologies from different companies.
This is required to show some actual collaboration stories that can be applied and improve the citizen life's. And this is important also for the integrators. It is of high importance for them to see that the technologies can be merged, easily. One public administration from Romania wanted to collect in real time traffic data.
And besides the surveillance cameras that were already installed and connected to a control device. They were looking for a way to get a live feedback. Like controlling live the lightning system, in order to reduce the electricity cost. To be able from our system to implement a command for this. We muse relay on a multitude of sensors and cameras.
We are collaborating with a large variety of companies and use their product data to incorporate in our software frame. And be able for example of analyze wind, temperature, humidity, And there are several implementation of this kind that are happening in our country. Bogdan, can you please share some data? When talking about city security, we are referring to devices that can provide to certain people specific data, live.
Information's that can help with the video analysis details about an action that can happened right now The authorities need to receive support from the technology in order to eliminate the need to have a permanent officer in that place. When your are having hundreds, thousands of cameras across a city, it is almost impossible to keep track of everything. Here, the edge processing, the analysis that rans in the camera directly can identify behavioral patterns Can alert the operator in order for him to pin-point a possible incident. When we are discussing about a certain level of security, like Bogdan said previously The traffic management becomes very important. And the last element that we see to have a huge impact in the smart and safe city is the way we are handling the environment.
We have a big problem with waste that is left in sensible areas Or simply left on the side of the road. The technology can alert authorities live, when waste is being stored illegally. All these things can be monitored from one office and every security officer can see only his interest area.
Bogdan was talking about a centralized system. In a modern city, having a centralized office where decisions can be made, it is almost a mandatory item. There are a lot of data that the operator must consolidate and analyze in real time. And as Bogdan said, it is almost impossible for one of a few people to look and see all these parameters. For this situation, ATEN has certain products that can be used.
The first pilon, the alarms. The alarms can be triggered by 3rd party products, either by sensors or surveillance cameras. And based on these alarms, ATEN products and technologies can be used to take collective decisions. And here we are reaching the second pilling - the traffic management and more. What happened up to now, because I am working in the networking industry for more than 10 years It was build an infrastructure that can use thousands or million of IOT equipment's That are going to be used to digitalize the communities.
So for now we can only talk about the infrastructure - like the fiber optic one. The next step is to connect the devices to this network and use their data properly. And the third step and maybe the most important one...
We need to thing on a long term and see how we can use the products with less energy. Another domain that suffered in the last years is the Education. And in the last year or so, there was an increased accent on digitalization. How do you see Axis and ATEN products suitable for education? We are proposing live streaming mixers that can use multiple cameras The teacher can choose the place where he stands. It can be either on this desk, or table, it doesn't matter.
And let's not forget that the students have to work individually on certain projects. All that content has to be able to be shared with the rest of the class and the teacher. ATEN has created such a devices that even though looks similar with a traditional videoconference device Besides the fact that all of the students can see each other and the teacher is the moderator. Every student can share in a dynamic way it's content and the students can select which presentation they want to see. So every single student can have a separate experience, an unique one, chose by him.
I am sure that these solutions can be applied also in the future, once the pandemic situation will be gone. Probably we will face a hybrid education system, so the digitalization will not stop, it will evolve. Bogdan, can you please share AXIS thoughts related to education digitalization? During this period of time, we had a great number of collaboration with Universities that had to continue the teaching process Or helping companies do international conferences, looking for solution to be easy to use.
And for these scenarios, we proposed special PTZ cameras, that allow both pan-tilt-zoom. In order to be able to obtain great details of the speaker or environment. We are talking about the V59 video camera, available now in 4K resolution.
With the edge capability of the camera, we could use selected applications like CamStreamer In such a way that an IP Camera can broadcast on the Internet without any other processing device. But, as everybody know me, i am a very positive person. Things will get back to it's natural patch. And when we are talking about the natural path, we are talking about ways to increase the security of the schools and universities.
Or ways to interact by using audio products. The audio products that can be used to deliver a specific message to a particular flour, building or room. In order not to need an employee to move around the building and transmit the message. Another subject that was brought to attention in the last period of time is the occupancy level of the classrooms.
And here we have the capability to analyze each classroom To know how many people are inside, and to quickly react if we need to move some students to keep a certain distance. And we can also transform other resources, like heating, air conditioning, make them more efficient. In such a way to be able to increase or decrease the intensity.
I have notices that we already are interacting in a way or another with a lot of the technologies that you talked about. Now what about the retail vertical. What kind of products are suitable for it? More and more stores are using digital signage solutions. Used mainly to promote the products and the offers. The retail can use a wide range of technologies, that have one single purpose. To develop a complete user experience
and a cost management systems How does AXIS is approaching the retail area? This is a complex vertical that has the client in the middle of the circle. When you are entering in a store, first you need to feel safe. In order to feel safe, you have to be aware that someone is watching you, discreetly.
That is way, the equipment's that we have developed for the retail are small, compact and discreet. And can even be repainted to blend in the environment. The video equipment's are becoming important not just for the security itself But also for the process optimization. When talking about security, from a manager's point of view, we have to secure the goods. And we want to have a store - client interaction as perfect as it can be.
In the same time we want to have the traffic data corelated with the actual sales. From the moment we are making the process efficient and see the traffic that we are having in-store or in-stores, and second step is to analyze the way the goods are displayed on the selves. Some of the products have a good rotation, others not. Once a certain product has reached a minimum channel inventory, the camera can let the operator know. This can be done automatically, the video camera can be integrated in the stock store program. In such a way that the operator can resupply the stores quickly and without efforts.
Thank you very much. Retail definitely can be reinvented with technology. Now, at the end, I would like to close with a conclusion from each one of you. And I think it will be useful for the integrators to see the benefit of using both AXIS and ATEN products, as a whole. We are always looking for partners which are reaching to expand their current reach. Of course there is a certain background that ATEN is looking on. And that is mainly IT.
But we are not limiting ourselves to it. We want to have partners that can see opportunities when they are visiting a client. And be proactive in generating new businesses or improving the current situation.
In this regard, we are providing a wide range of equipment's and knowhow. In order to be able to integrate them into an ecosystem. ATEN has reopened it's training facility. and we are inviting all of our partners to come and visit us and experience different usage scenarios. We are inviting them to get to know ATEN latest technologies And to find solutions even for the most challenging applications. And now Bogdan. A conclusion from AXIS?
AXIS will continue to do its educational events and trainings, made especially for each vertical of interest. And, as always, we are pleased to receive feedback, in order to improve ourselves and be able to deliver every time at our best. Thank you very much to you and our audience.
2021-07-20