New market finds Vantum in wake of terrorist attacks

BOULDER — Worries over security and air travel safety due to the terrorist attacks on the East Coast last month have drawn Howdy Pierce and his Vantum Corp. into the high-tech spotlight.

“There’s definitely been an uptick in interest,´ said Pierce, founder, president and chief executive officer of Vantum. “Overall, more people are asking questions (about our products).”

About half of those questions center on the use of Vantum’s digital video appliances as security surveillance systems, while the other half center on using Vantum’s devices to enhance and complement existing videoconferencing equipment.

Videoconferencing has increased in popularity as an alternative to air travel in the weeks following the hijacking and crashing of four commercial jetliners last month.

While Pierce, 32, acknowledged that his company’s digital video appliances work well as effective high-tech security devices, that has not been the company’s focus. He said 80 percent of his sales are to companies that use his technology to record and archive mundane corporate events like lectures, board meetings, depositions and training sessions.

“Where we get traction on this product is not surveillance uses,” Pierce said of the 2-year-old company. “The video documentation market is the hottest for us.”

But that could change. Pierce said that Vantum would re-evaluate its long-term strategies in light of the new safety-conscious environment in the country. But he also said it would not abandon its core business of capturing and archiving corporate events.

The Boulder-based company has been selling two digital video appliances since June. The C1d is a sleek-looking camera with an internal hard drive that records or streams MPEG video, which is the standard for compressed video data, across a company’s network.

The M1d version is simply that same hard drive without the camera. It plugs into a company’s existing analog video equipment. The M1d, capable of streaming and recording a company’s videoconferencing sessions, has been garnering a lot of interest lately, said Emily Kapner, Vantum’s marketing manager.

The appliances, as Vantum likes to call them, with hard drive and Web server included, can store anywhere from 167 hours to 560 hours of camcorder-quality footage, depending on the capacity of the hard drive.

Jason Meserve, who is multimedia editor for Network World and has written several articles on Vantum, likes the system. “What appeals to me is the all-in-one system, with the camera and the hard drive built in, as compared to other systems, where you have to have a separate server and a separate box with an added layer of complexity,” he said.

With Vantum’s accompanying software package, an administrator can define functions for the camera using simple JavaScript commands. Moreover, all the viewing and configuring can be done in a Web browser or in Apple QuickTime, for example.

To maximize storage space on the appliance’s hard drive, an administrator might program the computer to stream live video at a snapshot rate of one frame per second when all is quiet. But as soon as motion is detected, an identification badge is swiped or lights are turned on, the appliance could start recording at a live-action rate of 30 frames per second. Furthermore, the system can be programmed to trip an alarm or send alerts to someone at a remote location by page, e-mail or phone.

“It’s for a company that wants a system in the office that does not need to be attended,” Meserve said.

Pierce said the other advantages of Vantum’s video appliances are that no bulky tapes are needed to record and store information. Because the video information is in digital format, footage can be cataloged, located and retrieved quickly. “They want a system that seamlessly integrates video into their enterprise network,” Pierce said of his customers, a mix of private-sector companies, schools and the federal government.

Vantum is exploring a potential strategic alliance with Boulder-based DigitalCCTV, an industrial security firm that specializes in installing closed-circuit digital video systems and counts among its customers Wild Oats Markets Inc. and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

DigitalCCTV Chief Executive John Williams is impressed with Vantum’s technology, but said it faces challenges in a digital camera market that includes European electronics giant Philips and Texas-based Axcess Inc. The main barrier for Vantum, Williams said, is the high price of its appliances: $2,295 for the M1d, $2,495 for the C1d and more than $3,000 for the brand-new, higher-capacity M1d.

“They have some really cool technology, but the only problem is they come in at a fairly pricey level for the security industry,” he said. “In the security world, everything becomes commodity quickly. Then again, after Sept. 11 price is less of an issue.”

And after Sept. 11, video monitoring seems ready to become an even more prevalent facet of American life. While Pierce recognizes that this could be good business for Vantum, he still pitches his appliances as more than just a high-tech security system. But in the end, it may come down to differences over the meaning and the legitimate uses of video surveillance in the workplace.

“Technology has gotten so far ahead of the law, like with facial identification and thermo-imaging technology, that there isn’t really a legal context in which to put it,´ said Stephen Keating, executive director of the Privacy Foundation, a non-profit research and public-education organization.

“I don’t think these concerns are new,” Pierce responded. “The technology is getting more powerful, and we’re on the leading edge of that. But it’s the responsibility of our customers to use it in an ethical manner. Society has to work out what it thinks is acceptable.”

Regardless of what kind of sales boost Vantum receives from the general demand for increased security since Sept. 11, the company is still subject to the pitfalls of a skittish economy. Just last month, Vantum laid off four employees, including its vice president of marketing, Scott Currier, leaving it with 20 employees. It is also attempting to sublease part of the 23,000 square feet of space it occupies at Flatiron Parkway.

“There is a silver lining in the economic troubles today,” Pierce said. “No competition is being funded right now.” Which is what makes Vantum’s recent $2.5 million round of venture capital funding all the sweeter, bringing the company’s total to $7.5 million since inception.Contact John Aguilar at (303) 440-4950 or e-mail jaguilar@bcbr.com.

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