Latin America. Milestone Systems is acquiring all outstanding shares of Connex International, the training, certification and advisory oversight company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Milestone was already a majority shareholder of Connex as of an initial investment in July 2010.
For years, Connex teams prepared, managed, and completed Milestone's channel partner training in many languages, with proven success in all regions. In recent years, Connex has incorporated rigorous certification testing and documentation of Milestone Solution Partner integrations with the open XProtect® platform, such as access control, analytics, geospatial positioning, video synopsis, 360-degree camera corrected display, network video storage, and more.
Milestone is now fully investing in these dedicated resources to support the need for continuing education in the physical security sector to further strengthen the trend of IP analog technology. Partner channel training in open platform IP video skills creates value for everyone in the industry: increasing technical knowledge differentiates system integrators in the market and, more importantly, ensures that they can offer the best solutions to their customers.
"Our international ecosystem of competent distributors and resellers is key to Milestone's strategy for continued growth. To further accelerate, globalize and align our efforts in order to strengthen the empowerment of this ecosystem, at Milestone we decided to fully acquire Connex and include it at the heart of our business operations," said Lars Thinggaard, president and CEO of Milestone Systems, adding:
"As a key component of our concern to serve the customers of the future, we at Milestone will continue to invest significant resources in the Milestone Knowledge Program and the teams that bring our global training concepts to market. The full addition of Connex to Milestone is testament to this strategy. Their services help Milestone partners deliver the most competitive and best-designed high-quality solutions in the industry."
The goal of the initial transition in the fourth quarter of 2013 will be to continue current training operations while building global capacity, including plans to launch self-guided online certification courses for channel partners. In addition to the Milestone Knowledge Program, the professional advisory services offered by Connex to key Milestone partners will be incorporated into Milestone's core business framework.
