Well, not exactly. However, Google Lab’s announcement last month follows or validates – depending if you own Google stock – an emerging security systems model: Web-based electronic access control.
Don’t bother buying Windows Excel software; don’t bother with software at all. Google Spreadsheets is a browser click away – just sign up for the service. You can create basic spreadsheets; upload CSV or XLS data; and save your work online or to your own computer. And there’s collaboration, too.
Is Bill Gates shaking in his Birkenstocks? Maybe. But Microsoft has got its own Web-based application experiments, too.
Whether spreadsheets or access control, history continues to repeat. Products turn into systems and systems turn into services. Security experts interviewed at major conferences believe the industry is in the middle of the second “turn.” There are caveats. For some, it is better to own than rent. And different people define Web-based access in vastly different ways.
Many access control system manufacturers and systems integrators who design have shifted to a browser GUI. Over a local area net, enterprise Intranet or wide area net, security uses the Web browser rather than software on a computer. It also eases the integration of access control with other security functions.
The approach yields significant business benefits including standardization across the enterprise, no matter the number or distance of location; scalability; universal and instantaneous upgrading; as well as a more traditional feeling of ownership. Web-based access systems that require no locally installed software also are better able to meet different and changing configurations while more easily integrating into various industry-leading hardware controllers.
Still, another advantage of the browser, especially in an emergency, is remote operation. Through the browser or an alarm event, security from any location can lock down a facility or a selected area or remote facility in an emergency situation instantaneously,
Then there’s IT.
Systems that require software being loaded on the organization’s network needs more IT involvement since it is responsible for the main integrity of the net.