Software applications and security solutions in the government vertical market are in high demand and competing vendors are stepping up their game.

One big push in the industry is the smart card initiative, according to Rick Focke, product manager, Software House, Westford, Mass. The acceptance of TWIC cards and how many have already been rolled out is just one focus. "There have been some hiccups in the government's delivery of those cards but it's picking up," explained Focke. For Software House, that has been the main product enhancement and application-to accept those cards and enroll them properly in the system.

Jumbi Edulbehram, vice president of Business Development for Next Level Security Systems, Carlsbad, Calif., agrees that there is a lot of attention to identification technology, such as biometrics, with the ultimate goal to get to some kind of smart card which has everyone's identity information on it. "And that's also connected with asset management technologies," explained Edulbehram. "Obviously when it comes to people in the government and military space, they have tons of assets. Software applications for asset tracking and management is a big need right now-being able to tag big assets with RFID and using GPS tracking to know where these assets are at any point and time."

One program in the government space that will impact access control software is the Identity and Credential Access Management (ICAM) initiative, according to Robert Beliles, vice president of Enterprise Business Development, Hirsch Electronics, Santa Ana, Calif. "Beyond obviously raising higher levels of security when it comes to the identity part of it, ICAM is really being aimed at significantly doing more in terms of tying physical access control systems in with logical or network access systems," explained Beliles. "So the implication for access control vendors is one of basically making sure that your system has the interoperability capabilities to conform to those guidelines that ICAM spells out."