Vancouver-based businesses in need of surveillance technologies can check out Axis Communications’ new Tech Experience Centre located in East Vancouver. The centre opened last week  to showcase Axis’ emerging security tools, including audio, visual, and wearable devices.

“The West Coast has been a very strong market for us,” said Keith D’Sa, country manager at Axis. “We wanted to open an experience centre to show support to our existing partner base.” The company sells through partners who conduct design and installation for large enterprise consumers, D’Sa told the Vancouver Tech Journal. “Having a space gives them the ability to see that they're getting a lot of support from Axis — the ability to physically touch and feel the technology in person, as opposed to just looking at a spec sheet or having to buy it and then try it.”

Prior to the launch, there wasn’t a conducive office to see the technology in person for Western Canada-based clients. “One of the major reasons to open one in Vancouver would be proximity,” D’Sa said. He noted that these buyers would often have to fly to California to see the technology in real life. “[The centre] allows us access to touch-points with our customers from all the way from the prairies to Vancouver Island.”

The event was attended by a number of people in the company’s ecosystem, including the founder of Axis and the Swedish consul of Vancouver. Axis demoed several of its technologies, including its AI-based object classification and identification tool called Axis Object Analytics, and its redaction technology which blurs faces as people walk through video. 

Nonetheless, competition in the video surveillance market remains fierce, given its global valuation of USD $48.7 billion in 2022. Notable local competition includes Avigilon, a Canadian subsidiary of Motorola, with headquarters in Vancouver. However, amidst the concerns of a looming recession, D’Sa supposed that security technologies would remain relatively unaffected. “Any time crime rates go up — which is typically an effect of a recession, [as] people struggle — the need for security typically rises,” he said. “Obviously, we have the ability to solve some of those problems.”