International. Milestone Systems recently announced strategic initiatives to significantly improve the engagement of the Milestone partner community. The announcement was made during the Milestone Integration Platform Symposium, an annual event that this year took place in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The new business initiatives include the introduction of forums for partners and customers, spaces designed to give and share recommendations on future Milestone solutions, services and devices. Resources for developers will be leveraged to further ensure that all partners developing add-ons for XProtect® meet the highest standards of reliability, openness, security, and seriousness. Through educational and advisory services, simplicity will be enhanced in the development of solutions with interoperability with XProtect®. Milestone will also allocate additional marketing resources to further disseminate these add-ons to new and existing business partners and customers.
To implement this vision, Milestone plans to take, among others, the following steps:
- Create a consulting board made up of partners and clients on prioritization strategies.
- Establish a developer forum to strengthen the developer experience.
- Improve the design and development of SDKs (software development kits) and develop more API (application programming interface) documentation.
- Expand solution certifications to strengthen reliability and ensure consistent quality.
- Consolidate an online marketplace (Milestone) for partners to promote and sell their solutions.
- Launch joint marketing programs to strengthen business collaboration.
The emphasis on Milestone and partners as a single community is an extension of Milestone's ongoing commitment to maximizing the value of video management systems for partners and customers.
By strengthening the partner community more deeply with these activities, Milestone can continue to address the growing market demand, which calls for value generation faster. This means further encouraging direct interaction between partners and strengthening partners' ability to use community resources and joint marketing opportunities.
In 2015 Milestone recorded a 30% increase, compared to 2014, in partner-programmed XProtect® add-ons. Monthly downloads of the Milestone Software Development Kit (SDK) doubled in 2015, compared to 2014. This indicates a huge interest in developing add-ons for XProtect® from The Milestone developer partner community that are responding to customer needs.
"Customers will gain unprecedented innovation and value in their video solutions, while our partners will benefit from how Milestone's open platform community and technology will accelerate growth," said Lars Thinggaard, CEO and President of Milestone Systems. "Milestone is taking the lead in this burgeoning market, as we have seen pronounced growth in demand for smarter video solutions. We believe our vision of collaborative work, with a strong emphasis on our partners, will help Milestone's open platform community take the next steps toward a future of which video is a fundamental part."
Milestone Systems was the first video surveillance provider in the security sector to design software with open architecture, whose purpose is continuous development and value-added integrations with other devices and systems. Today, nearly 150 Milestone solution partners and system integrators have documented solution extensions with the XProtect® software platform. Many others around the world have designed customized solutions for their clients' specific projects. The aim is to ensure that this trend continues to increase.
