Canon Offers to Buy Axis for $2.8 Billion

[kenneth_dart]

Just read that Canon has offered to buy Axis:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/canon-offers-to-buy-swedish-security-camera-maker-for-2-8-billion/
Canon Offers to Buy Swedish Security Camera Maker for $2.8 Billion

 

[Mike]

Oh man, just last week @fenderman offered Axis $2.6 billion!

J/K, good find and thanks for sharing.

 

[fenderman]

@Mike Damn...i tried...even pulled the sofa cushions to find some extra coin!

 

[bp2008]

I always thought the security camera industry needed to learn a thing or two from point-and-shoot cameras. I mean really why can't a security camera take 16+ megapixel snapshots and have a 4-10x zoom lens with autofocus for under $300, if you can buy that in the form of a handheld camera complete with rechargeable batteries, buttons, and an LCD display.

 

[Razer]

Shoot, that's a good buy right there. If Canon can just sell like 94 1.3mp Axis cameras after the purchase they will have made their money back! :laugh:

 

[RyanODan]

lol @ these comments.

 

[CYANiDE]

I always thought the security camera industry needed to learn a thing or two from point-and-shoot cameras. I mean really why can't a security camera take 16+ megapixel snapshots and have a 4-10x zoom lens with autofocus for under $300, if you can buy that in the form of a handheld camera complete with rechargeable batteries, buttons, and an LCD display.

I don't know if this is serious or not. Can you imagine the storage requirements for 16 MP cameras?

I offered them 2.7 billion but they declined.

 

[bp2008]

Yes, I'm completely serious. Handheld snapshot cameras have always been way, way ahead in image resolution, optics, and image quality compared to high frame-rate video cameras. Just look at IP cameras older than about 3 or 4 years. With few exceptions, 640x480 was the best that most people could afford. At the same time a trip to Wal Mart could get you a 6 to 12 megapixel (snapshots) handheld camera for under $200. Nobody ever adapted this technology to an IP camera. If you wanted to buy IP cameras for $200, the best you could likely have done is 2 foscams.

Nowadays, in a point-and-shoot camera you can get 20 megapixels (snapshots, 720p@30fps video) for $68 on amazon.com, with 5x motorized optical zoom, autofocus, fairly good optics, an SD card slot, and even fancy features like smile detection. Consider what it would take to turn that into a kick-ass security camera. Strip out the unnecessary features like the LCD display, buttons, lithium battery, charger, optical image stabilization, permanent IR filter, etc. Add an RJ45 port, PoE power, mechanical IR filter, IR LEDs, and weatherproof enclosure, and mod the heck out of the firmware. Then you have a 1 MP security camera that can take 20 megapixel snapshots of criminals. Even if they had to sell it for 4 times the price, I would buy that.

 

[Bow94z]

Filing my Patent for it as we speaknthego:


I agree with what your saying.

Yes, I'm completely serious. Handheld snapshot cameras have always been way, way ahead in image resolution, optics, and image quality compared to high frame-rate video cameras. Just look at IP cameras older than about 3 or 4 years. With few exceptions, 640x480 was the best that most people could afford. At the same time a trip to Wal Mart could get you a 6 to 12 megapixel (snapshots) handheld camera for under $200. Nobody ever adapted this technology to an IP camera. If you wanted to buy IP cameras for $200, the best you could likely have done is 2 foscams.

Nowadays, in a point-and-shoot camera you can get 20 megapixels (snapshots, 720p@30fps video) for $68 on amazon.com, with 5x motorized optical zoom, autofocus, fairly good optics, an SD card slot, and even fancy features like smile detection. Consider what it would take to turn that into a kick-ass security camera. Strip out the unnecessary features like the LCD display, buttons, lithium battery, charger, optical image stabilization, permanent IR filter, etc. Add an RJ45 port, PoE power, mechanical IR filter, IR LEDs, and weatherproof enclosure, and mod the heck out of the firmware. Then you have a 1 MP security camera that can take 20 megapixel snapshots of criminals. Even if they had to sell it for 4 times the price, I would buy that.

 

[CYANiDE]

Yes, I'm completely serious. Handheld snapshot cameras have always been way, way ahead in image resolution, optics, and image quality compared to high frame-rate video cameras. Just look at IP cameras older than about 3 or 4 years. With few exceptions, 640x480 was the best that most people could afford. At the same time a trip to Wal Mart could get you a 6 to 12 megapixel (snapshots) handheld camera for under $200. Nobody ever adapted this technology to an IP camera. If you wanted to buy IP cameras for $200, the best you could likely have done is 2 foscams.

Nowadays, in a point-and-shoot camera you can get 20 megapixels (snapshots, 720p@30fps video) for $68 on amazon.com, with 5x motorized optical zoom, autofocus, fairly good optics, an SD card slot, and even fancy features like smile detection. Consider what it would take to turn that into a kick-ass security camera. Strip out the unnecessary features like the LCD display, buttons, lithium battery, charger, optical image stabilization, permanent IR filter, etc. Add an RJ45 port, PoE power, mechanical IR filter, IR LEDs, and weatherproof enclosure, and mod the heck out of the firmware. Then you have a 1 MP security camera that can take 20 megapixel snapshots of criminals. Even if they had to sell it for 4 times the price, I would buy that.

I agree on image quality and cheaper cameras. My concern was not whether they shouldn't be cheaper but regarding the storage requirements. Until some sort of super-compression comes out, I don't see us using 16MP cameras until hard drives are way, way cheaper. From a commercial standpoint, I'm thinking about sites with 300-400 cameras at 16MP even just 7fps and it would be insane.

 

[networkcameracritic]

Canon has made security cameras of their own for a while, actually with some unique features as some use them as webcams as they can broadcast rtmp, but you don't see or hear much about them. They bought Milestone a few months ago, the largest NVR software company and they have not changed their business practices and run autonomously from Canon. I would think that Axis would be run that way, at least for a while and either Canon would fold their surveillance camera unit to Axis or rebrand Axis as Canon which I think would be a mistake.

Also, the quality of other brands has increased more compared to Axis, at the same time, an inverse for pricing. In the past, you could get close to Axis quality with a Taiwan camera at half the price, so a trade off of price vs. quality, But Axis started making their cameras in Mexico and other places, so I feel their quality at best stayed the same or went down, but now there's serious competition from China. So the price differential is staggering and disruptive but the quality differential is not as great as it even was a few years ago. So Axis is smart to cash in if they can't compete. Look at Bosch and Flir, they both are now competing on the low end as they know what's going on. Companies like Mobotix and Axis have not yet figured this out. Why can't they make a small bullet or dome in Mexico and sell it in the U.S. for $200? Bosch and Flir does it.

 

[bp2008]

I agree on image quality and cheaper cameras. My concern was not whether they shouldn't be cheaper but regarding the storage requirements. Until some sort of super-compression comes out, I don't see us using 16MP cameras until hard drives are way, way cheaper. From a commercial standpoint, I'm thinking about sites with 300-400 cameras at 16MP even just 7fps and it would be insane.

Yes it would be a lot of storage space. Even 1 or 2 jpeg snapshots per second, at 20 megapixels each, would likely be larger than a 1080p h264 video stream. h264 or better yet h265, if properly tuned, could certainly do a better job of compression. But I bet you would still be doubling your storage requirements to have a low resolution video with a high frame rate alongside a super-high resolution video with low frame rate. In the event you ever needed to identify something or someone in a video though, the extra expense would be worth it!

 

[lojix]

Yes it would be a lot of storage space. Even 1 or 2 jpeg snapshots per second, at 20 megapixels each, would likely be larger than a 1080p h264 video stream. h264 or better yet h265, if properly tuned, could certainly do a better job of compression. But I bet you would still be doubling your storage requirements to have a low resolution video with a high frame rate alongside a super-high resolution video with low frame rate. In the event you ever needed to identify something or someone in a video though, the extra expense would be worth it!

Agree completely! It a shame the developments in technologies are restricted in this way. There is no reason why the features of digital handheld camera technology couldn't be better in sync with security camera technology... and just as traditional handheld camera technology really began to advance into its digital age, the true value becomes a bit clearer as the demand for begins to plummet, with smart phones basically making them redundant.

but it's only a matter of time, and the consumer market will be able to snap 20mp shots of their driveways from their IP cams.