On poles at major intersections, on the ceilings of retail outlets, even on the rooftops of private homes, cameras can be seen — watching silently 24/7.
A 2011 report from Electronics.ca Publications noted that the video surveillance market is expected to grow from $11.5 billion in 2008 to $37.7 billion in 2015. Cameras, storage, servers, encoders and software are the major components of a video surveillance system. Cameras accounted for nearly half of the total video surveillance market in 2008 and are expected to have a year-over-year growth rate of  21.1 percent from 2010 to 2015.
With the poor global economy, video surveillance is thought of as a way to better protect assets from rising crime without the need to employ more personnel. Additionally, video surveillance systems are transitioning to networked or IP systems from traditional analogue systems. Digital, network video surveillance systems offer benefits and advanced functionalities that cannot be provided by an analog video surveillance system. The advantages include remote accessibility, high image quality, event management and intelligent video capabilities, easy integration possibilities and better scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
Government, retail, banking, education, industry and transportation are the major sectors where video surveillance systems are deployed for security and where there is the greatest interest in new digital systems. The consumer market is also experiencing considerable growth as families view IP cameras as a way to monitor activity in and around the home, particularly to ensure the safety of children. Axis Communications invented the networked camera in 1996 and now they are pushing the technology in new directions.
“People in the region are interested in safety first and our IP cameras and systems are being used in innovative ways to enhance security,” said Baraa Al Akkad, regional sales manager, Middle East for Axis Communications. “For instance we're installing cameras now in school buses. This became a requirement at the request of parents. They want to make sure their children are safe in the bus going from home to school and back. These cameras watch the drivers' behavior while they're driving, so they don't drive recklessly.”
Networked cameras offer security not just in the moment, but their capability to send the video to a storage device means that there's a record of the venue for the entire time that it's being monitored. That recording can be accessed and viewed anywhere as needed.
“I'll give you a very simple example of how this can be important,” said Al Akkad. “One retail shop had a broken mirror and the management wanted to put in a claim for it on their insurance. They needed to see how the mirror got broken. Was it an employee or was it a customer or something else?  From their headquarters, the management looked back over the stored video and they found out that the installation of the mirror was incorrect. It had cracked on its own! With their networked digital video system it was simple to see what had happened.”
Video is commonly archived for a few days to a month, but it can be saved for longer periods depending on the amount of storage that's available and the requirements. This is just one example of the flexibility and scalability of IP video solutions and how they can be built to exactly meet the needs of the customer.
And there are many new customers. Cameras are being installed in places that never would have been considered previously. Axis Communications is about to bring to market the AXIS Q60-C PTZ Dome Network Camera that handles heat to 75 °C and sandstorms. The camera has an internal climate control system that keeps its circuitry cool. Al Akkad stated that the camera was designed with countries such as Saudi Arabia in mind. The Q60-C PTZ is for use in oil and gas fields, pipeline monitoring and city surveillance where less robust cameras wouldn't function very long. Thermal cameras are bringing change to surveillance technology, too. Thermal cameras watch for the heat signature given off by any object. Even in the darkest night a thermal camera will “see” the heat signature of a person climbing over a fence and trigger an alert.
These days though, digital video surveillance isn't just for security. It can be surprising to know who's watching where and why.
“The retail sector uses video surveillance for much more than catching shoplifters,” said Al Akkad. “Network cameras can allow marketing staff to see that goods are displayed properly in a store and view how sales staff interact with customers. It’s easy to pinpoint ‘hot spots’ in a shop and watch how customers respond to merchandise or displays in those locations. New intelligent video applications count the number of people entering and leaving various areas. Video surveillance is essential for the security manager but marketing managers have come to depend on it as well.”
While initially slow to accept video surveillance due to cultural issues, Al Akkad said that now organizations throughout Saudi Arabia are enthusiastically utilizing such systems. This is clear not only in Axis Communications' rising sales numbers but also in the public tenders that are being announced regularly by the government which is implementing  many different video surveillance applications.
“We see the trend clearly in Saudi Arabia that the shift is being made from analog to fully IP digital video network solutions,” said Al Akkad. “The knowledge of the latest technology is really high among our customers. In the Kingdom now they are adopting the latest technologies which are being installed in advanced countries worldwide.”