S.P.A.C.® NEWS
FDI joins the S.P.A.C.® alliance
« Scalable and open, the SSCP® protocol lends itself to an evolution towards smartbuilding and to a security of all the electronic systems of a building »
Clément Berger,
FDI Sales & Marketing Director
FDI, the renowned French expert in access control, intercom and IoT, recently announced that the company joins S.P.A.C.®, the European Alliance for Physical and Logical Security. Clément Berger, FDI Sales & Marketing Director, explains the background of this strategic decision.
What do you consider the core expertise of your company? On which markets do you focus?
Clément Berger : FDI has been designing and manufacturing electronic access management systems for over 30 years for residential and commercial buildings. Mostly for residential, collective and commercial buildings. Our integrated solutions enable comprehensive management: Access to the building, visitor management, lighting control, roller shutter operation and much more... Our solutions combine security and ease of use! Today, our systems are installed in more than 2 million homes and connected offices across France and abroad. All our intercom, access control and IoT solutions are designed in France at our Cholet site.
Your company is growing rapidly. Can you tell us more about how this is accomplished?
Clément Berger : We are one of the pioneers when it comes to deploy cloud-based access control systems for collective housing. Our expertise in data security is the result of 20 years of practical experience. Our expertise in access control and security is acknowledged by many in the industry. Besides that we also notice that the demand for electronic security for buildings is continuously growing. We have doubled our turnover in in the course of 2 years, reaching a revenue level of 30 million Euro in 2021! Our workforce is following the same growth progression with a current headcount of 160 employees. Two thirds of our workforce consist of talented people that design and manufacture our solutions.
70 engineers in RFID and cryptography put great effort in innovating our solutions and increase the security level of our systems. The new FDI corporate slogan reflects our evolutionary development and the values that drive us: "Friendly, Development & Innovation".
How do you see the access control market evolving?
Clément Berger : Historically, the residential market was made up of manufacturers who developed their own solutions and therefore their own ecosystem. However, there is a growing demand for interoperability between electronic products and between the various systems that equip a building. And this interoperability should rely on secure communication. Hence our interest in the SSCP® protocol: We need a unified and secure communication protocol capable of guaranteeing effective interoperability between our solutions and other building management products. We were looking for a standardized protocol that combines security with simplicity. And that is exactly what the SSCP® protocol delivers...
Why did you join the S.P.A.C.® Alliance?
Clément Berger : We joined S.P.A.C.® because it is a European initiative that brings together major European players in the field of logical and physical security around the SSCP® protocol. The only other, currently available alternatives that could be considered industry standards are the Wiegand protocol - universal but not very secure - and OSDP - the standardized and documented protocol of American origin – which we believe does not meet the requirements in our markets.
We believe that the SSCP® protocol is capable of evolving into a full fletched smart building protocol. Its scalability and openness support an array of possibilities, initially and most importantly to securely interconnect all the electronic systems in a building.