Archibald Putt, a 1980s channel to today’s downtrodden Dilbert, had a unique take on innovations and technology. In Putt’s Law, he observed, “Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.”
If Putt would have walked through a security industry tech exhibition in his day, the small number of corridors would have contained a lot of burglar and fire alarms, a few proprietary access control systems and hardly any security camera displays. Mention of logical security was, well, illogical.
Today, enterprise security leaders are awash in technology. Innovations seem to spill out every nanosecond or so.
And there is discernable anticipation – Or is it fear? – of what’s on the horizon.
This 4th annual Security magazine review of top influential and emerging innovations and technology boasts briefings on some of the hottest hot buttons, according to scores of end-users, integrators, consultants and manufacturers, as well as insightful virtual visits to research and development operations at big and little computer, communications and security technology firms.
The bottom line: products, systems and services are now more likely designed with the end-user’s business in mind with scalability, migration and multi-functionality firmly in mind.
“Realize, identify and understand the technology that you want to purchase and the essentials you want to address. Drill down into the exact needs to be met,” advised Sean Ahrens, project manager, Security Consulting and Design Services at Schirmer Engineering. “Eliminate the smoke and mirrors of software functionality that you ‘might’ use with the functionality that you will require."