Educational software firm Blackboard Inc. is branching out to offer campus video surveillance tools, the company announced Monday.
Blackboard’s new software would allow school administrators to view security videos, live and recorded, over the campus’ Internet.
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Blackboard has ventured into the campus security space before, according to Jeff Staples, the company’s senior director for marketing and business development. The company for years has provided door-access products for schools that monitor visitors in and out of campus buildings.
This January, Blackboard paid $182 million to acquire the NTI Group, a company that produces a mass notification system for schools in the event of a tragedy.
Blackboard is not the first firm to enter the campus security market, which has become a crowded one since the Virginia Tech tragedy, according to John X. Adiletta, chief executive officer of Somerset International Group, which offers security technology for schools such as the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut .
Most recently the market has focused on providing the capability to issue mass alerts, said Adilett, but competition is now shifting toward integrating preventative and response technologies. New York-based Somerset offers video surveillance that is integrated with a silent-alarm monitor students carry with them in case of an emergency.
Blackboard hopes to stand out among its competition with products that are integrated with its other security offerings and specially tailored to schools, Staples said.
“We understand that market better than anyone,” Staples said.
