There has been no shortage of daunting headlines in 2011. In March, the strongest earthquake in Japan’s history caused many deaths, causing massive damage and triggering a nuclear crisis. Along with natural disasters, there have also been deliberate acts of violence, including the Norwegian attacks and suicide bombings at the Moscow airport. In the UK, massive riots resulted in five deaths and serious damage.

The 9/11 event has promoted the development of the security industry in the past decade. The event leader Bin Laden died in May 2011. However, the war on terror is far from over. This will affect the younger generation in the entire region. After 30 years in power, Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak resigned and Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi was killed in October. The political instability, coupled with economic uncertainty, signifies that the past year must have been a time of trouble.

However, not only bad things have happened in the past year. Shenzhen, China successfully hosted the 2011 Summer University Games and hosted student athletes from all over the world. Many projects regained new opportunities. According to Frost & Sullivan, it is expected that the Asia-Pacific region will invest US$100 billion in the construction of 350 airports in the next 10 years. More new infrastructure has promoted the development of the security market, and some of them have pushed forward the development of the security industry due to political turmoil.

Mergers and Acquisitions There have been significant mergers and restructuring activities in 2011, which is a welcome sign after the recession. In September, Tyco International announced the split into three companies, of which the security sector was divided into two companies: ADT and business security and fire control companies. "One of Tyco's commercial reasons for splitting is to better serve its customers," said Charlie LeBlanc, president of FrontierMEDEX Security Services. "One of the deficiencies in the merger is that you start to lose customers and don't understand their needs anymore."

Prior to the Tyco division, Andatec Security Services acquired Proximex, a provider of physical security information management (PSIM), in April. In the same month, VerintSystems also conducted a PSIM business acquisition and acquired Rontal Engineering Applications. As the security system needs to process more data, there is a clear need to integrate it into the management platform.

In September, United Technologies Corporation of the United States reorganized and merged security and fire protection with HVAC provider Carrier into UTC (Climate, Controls and Security Systems). The new company will be led by the new president and CEO Geraud Darnis.

Siemens also reorganized in September and set up a new FireSafety and Security business unit, formed by the LifeCycle and Enterprise branches.

Many video analytics vendors were either acquired or were eliminated during the year. Both cases also appeared at Vidient, which was declared bankrupt in January and was acquired by Agilence in April. In August, Keeneo's 4-D analysis technology was sold to Digital Barriers for $2.8 million, which weakened the power of independent analysis providers.

Among the video content analysis companies that are still in operation, ObjectVideo sued Bosch Security Systems, Sony and Samsung Techwin for patent infringement this year. The defendant has filed a counterclaim and the legal results have not yet been determined. Even if ObjectVideo wins, it loses some of the biggest names in the video surveillance market because of its reputation.