Jeff Corrall / Strategic Partnerships & Integrations, March Networks, User level

– What does March Networks do?
March Networks is a global provider of video surveillance and video-based business intelligence solutions.

– How long has March Networks been in the physical security market?
March Networks was founded in 2000, and has been providing enterprise-class video solutions to the market for 18 years.

– Why did you join ONVIF and how long has your company been a member of ONVIF?
March Networks was among the first companies to become an ONVIF member back in 2008. We joined ONVIF because we recognized – and were quite excited about – the potential impact a common standard could have in simplifying video device interoperability. Ten years ago, everyone in the industry was struggling with different, non-standard protocols, and wishing for a solution that was much more plug-and-play for customers.

– Is your company involved in any particular working groups?
Not at this time.

– To which specific profiles does your company’s products conform and why is that beneficial to your business?
Our video recorders, IP cameras and VMS conform to Profile S and the benefit to our business is very clear. Today, the majority of cameras coming into the market support ONVIF, and our experience has generally been that we can arrive at a customer site and be 95% confident that we’ll be able to connect with any brand of camera – even if we don’t have a direct integration – thanks to ONVIF. The protocol removes the complexity integrations used to generate. More importantly, it leaves customers free to choose the products they want to use, rather than narrowing their options to a subset of products because of the difficulties an integration might otherwise represent.

– What does it mean to you to be a member of ONVIF and what kinds of business impacts have you seen as a result?
Our ONVIF membership – and the majority adoption of ONVIF industry-wide – allows March Networks to focus more time and resources on our product strategy, and take a more tactical approach to our direct product integrations. Ultimately, we are hoping to reach a point where all cameras, recorders, encoders etc. connect via ONVIF and everything just works, similar to how many of us rely on wireless protocols to connect our personal devices today without really thinking about it.

Interested in becoming an ONVIF member? There are several membership categories from which to choose.