05/01/2013 -Kastle Systems International, which provides managed security solutions, announced Wednesday that it has acquired CheckVideo, a cloud-based video intelligence service.

The acquisition should allow Kastle "to redefine price, performance, and delivery of video for our customer base," said Brian Eckert, executive vice president of Kastle, in an interview with  Security Management. 

The acquisition will also allow CheckVideo to accelerate its growth, he said. 

Kastle, which is based in Falls Church, Virginia, was founded in 1972. It provides access control solutions remotely to 40 states in the United States; more than 200 million people use the company's technologies daily, it says. CheckVideo provides video surveillance technologies that detect intrusions and send alerts to end-users automatically over the Web. The solution can be installed at indoor, outdoor, or remote locations alongside exisiting security technologies. 

“It’s a very well-done technology,” Eckert said of CheckVideo. “It’s smart in terms of how it detects, and it’s elegant in terms of how it sends, delivers, [and] portrays the information on the interface. There are a lot of people who see the product and want it right away–it has that kind of effect.”

Eckert stressed that end-users stand to benefit in large ways from the merger of the two companies. “The end-user is looking for a better security outcome, a more accurate understanding, an easy understanding that works.” He notes that many video management systems are difficult to use alongside existing security measures. “There’s so much complexity if you don’t set these up the right way.” But he says that the merger of Kastle and CheckVideo will address that problem. “It’s removed all those complexities by bringing it to the table as a full solution to begin with.”

In the official press release on the merger, Chris Brown, vice president of CheckVideo, is quoted as saying “Kastle brings us much more than a new large channel to market. It provides us with significant resources to build upon our platform and accelerate the overall market penetration for video as a service.”

CheckVideo will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Kastle but will operate independently, which Eckert says is important so that the company can “continue to flourish with its business model to go to market through resellers and other central station partners that it has.”

Eckert emphasizes that Kastle will continue its customer-focused approach when integrating CheckVideo’s technologies.