The UK has between two and four million CCTV cameras in operation. It’s hard to pin the exact number down as there is no requirement to register them, so figures are based on somewhat flaky sales data. What is certain is that the bulk of these cameras use analogue technology which causes a lot of problems in terms of quality, accessibility and reliability.

Over the past few years, IP-based fully digital cameras have grown in demand. The big CCTV vendors such as Axis, Panasonic, Bosch and Mobotix are currently fighting it out for market share. However, these stalwarts have been joined by new entrants from the IT market such as Cisco and D-Link.

The exciting thing for IT resellers is this: CCTV is pure channel. Apart from the odd corner shop with a self-installed dodgy webcam, all sales are initiated by channel partners and there is good margin in it. The cameras themselves are pretty similar, although some pioneers have unique technologies that give them the edge in wireless, distributed or outdoor environments. However, at a basic configuration level, the technology is easily understood by any IT supplier with a basic grasp of IP and storage.

The replacement or installation of a new CCTV systems also fits nicely with other projects like VoIP, network upgrade or videoconferencing, and best of all, the budget often comes out of facilities and not operational.

Many channel partners would discount CCTV as waste of time, but with typical deal sizes at even a small, single site hitting £20,000, and the drip feed commission from offsite monitoring contracts, it seems any IT reseller who simply ignores CCTV is missing out on a nice little earner.

Christine Horton is the editor of PC Pro’s sister site Channel Pro.

There must be something in the air, because there was much the same feeling of bullish optimism in two of the conferences I attended stateside, both of which were organised by US vendors for their international partners.

And in both, the vendors were attempting to convey an upbeat, “go-get-‘em” approach to their respective sales channels.

Despite kicking off the Cisco Partner Summit with an apology to partners over the ongoing problems with product delivery times (while concurrently directing the blame on Chinese workers), the networking giant’s VP of worldwide partner organisation, Keith Goodwin, gave a keynote speech peppered with references to making “bold moves” and “rewriting the rules” and “owning the game”.

He was clearly setting out to reassure the assembled partners that Cisco was super-confident about making its much-publicised transition into previously unexplored arenas, such as the datacentre – going so far as to compare any doubters to those fools who doubted its move into the voice space in the late 90s.

At the other end of the scale, storage vendor Compellent is a new kid on the block in comparison to a company the size of Cisco. However, it makes a lot of noise for a youngster.

The firm describes its sales approach as “positive-aggressive” (as opposed to positively aggressive), and nothing demonstrated this more than when its VP for sales (and ex-fighter pilot) Brian Bell, raced into the keynote presentation wearing combat gear, goggles and firing a paint gun at a SAN unit. The US partners loved it.

But this wasn’t just a skin-deep theme of “re-writing the rules”; following tough times for both vendors and VARs, there was a need to purvey a feeling of optimism moving forward. It was an opportunity to slap the assembled partners on the back and say “we’re coming out the other side of the recession and everything will be OK”. And this isn’t a bad thing. With some vendors publicly giving their partners the cold shoulder during the economic crises, the channel needs to know it’s still loved. And it appears, at least here, it is.

UPDATE: Compellent have very kindly sent us this photo of Brian preparing for combat. That’s how to get an audience’s attention!

Of course, some conveniently shorten into a series of letters that can actually be said as a single, new word. Think acronyms like NASA, SCUBA, laser. Think VAIO.

Today I read of Sony’s redefinition of the famous VAIO brand, and it occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea what it had stood for since its creation.

Very Attractive If Overpriced, perhaps?

The truth, it turns out, is not as exciting as I’d hoped. The original Video Audio Integrated Operation will now become the vastly more descriptive and creative Visual Audio Intelligent Organiser. The laptop world can exhale again.

But Sony isn’t the only brand with a famous abbreviation; a fairly obvious one is the use of HTML in the name of HoTMaiL. There are plenty of other IT brands with abbreviated product or company names – and they range from the interesting to the truly cringe-worthy. How many of these did you know?

Starting off gently with places…

Lexmark, a spin-off from IBM’s printer-manufacturing division, was so named after its base in Lexington, Kentucky. Kyocera is abbreviated from the original Kyoto Ceramics Co, while CISCO isn’t actually an acronym, despite appearances – it’s short for San Francisco.

Onto merging company names…

The two companies Shibaura Seisakusho and Tokyo Denki merged in 1939 to form Tokyo Shibaura Denki, nicknamed Toshiba. It took nearly 40 years for the now-famous name to be made offical.

LG, thankfully, comes from the merger of two Korean companies, Lucky and Goldstar. Far less saccharine than the oft-used “Life’s Good”.

Word meanings…

Samsung comes from the Korean word meaning “three stars”, while Sony itself is derived from Sonus, the Greek goddess of sound. Asus is another abbreviation, and fairly obvious once you know it; it comes from Pegasus, the mythical winged horse.

Finally, the Greek root xer means “dry”, so inventor Chester Carlson used it to distinguish his dry copying device from the wet copying devices of the time; thus Xerox was born.

Place names, merging companies, ancient words and mythical characters. But, much like VAIO once you know what it actually stands for, some acronyms sound exotic but are just plain bad.

Can BenQ really stand for Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to Life?

The question in my mind is; was VMWare surfing a wave during the pre-recession years, or actually driving it? Will the uber-boffins who delivered the goods, keep doing so without their Den Mother?