If there’s one thing Panasonic likely wanted the assembled media to take away from its showcase event today, it is that Panasonic means business, and it isn’t in the business of ceding market share in its markets to anyone.

The company launched its range of new B2B solutions at its 2015 Business Showcase event in Sydney, an event for Panasonic’s industry partners including system integrators, resellers, distributors and the media, always curious to see the latest and greatest.

The new solutions include fully-rugged handheld tablets; a 20-inch tablet with a 4K resolution display; a high-definition visual communications (HDVC) system; facial recognition and mobile surveillance security solutions; a cloud-based news production system; a 4K robotic camera; a high-visibility, high-reliability video wall; and a scalable optical disc library system to meet the growing demand for long-term data storage.

Jason Coleman, Business Systems Group Director and Country Head, Panasonic, said: “The needs of businesses are constantly evolving as the focus moves to BYOD, the Internet of Things, productivity and mobility. Our approach is to start from the business goal and provide the technology to achieve it, rather than the other way around. We’re pleased to announce a full suite of solutions, providing better technology to meet our customers’ business needs.”

Here is the video of the overview of Panasonic’s new products from today’s event. This is followed by a description of all the new business-class products launched today.

The video is a little dark due to too many competing light sources - had I made the speaker brighter it would have washed out the slides being displayed - but the sound is clear and you can see the slides, so it’s all good. Enjoy!

First up is Panasonic’s ToughPad line of rugged handheld tablets arriving in Australia.

There are two new 5-inch models, the Windows powered FZ-E1 and the Android powered FZ-X1. Each can be used in heavy gloves, in the rain or in direct sunlight to fulfil a wide range of applications across transport and logistics, retail and hospitality, manufacturing and aviation, utilities, field services, government and emergency services.

They are designed to replace multiple devices such as traditional tablets, handhelds or smartphones.

Second is Panasonic’s new 4K, 2-inch ToughPad tablet.

Featuring a brilliant and immersive 20-inch touch display for professionals in fields where visual clarity and collaboration are essential, its crystal-clear display is suitable for use in areas such as broadcast, photography, healthcare, architecture, field analysis, fashion and retail.

It has a magnesium alloy frame enclosed in a reinforced glass fibre case, ensuring it is not only a lightweight, but a business-rugged tablet built to handle a 76 cm drop to its back while operating, and 30 cm drops to 26 angles when nonoperational.

Third is Panasonic’s entry in the enterprise-grade videoconferencing space - a new High Definition Visual Communications (HDVC) System.

It is a platform for multi-site, enterprise-grade video conferencing, delivering video in 1080p at 60 frames per second to ensure smooth, crystal clear audio and video even under challenging bandwidth conditions.

Naturally, Panasonic claims its HDVC ‘offers a strong return on investment, offering compatibility with other solutions, and supporting today’s mobile office by connecting to a range of devices including smartphones and tablets for videoconferencing on the go.’

Fourth is Panasonic’s new mobile in-vehicle surveillance solution, designed to integrate into existing infrastructure to protect property and improve safety for public and private transportation, including trains, buses, police cars, security and cash vans, ambulances, and ferries.

The solution includes a vibration-resistant recorder which can capture data from up to eight on-board security cameras and uses Wi-Fi to upload recordings periodically to an organisation’s central servers for storage. It also permits live streaming from a vehicle via 3G or 4G, back to a station or central monitoring hub.

Fifth is Panasonic’s facial recognition analytics platform which provides face matching, face searching, people counting, and age and gender statistics capabilities for video surveillance systems. It can be used for surveillance to make areas safer and for retail and marketing applications.

It’s a PC-based platform which supports up to 20 face matching cameras per server, matching 1,000 faces a second, and taking only three seconds to search for a person from five million faces.

It also has the ability to set flexible alarm triggers on matched faces. Analysis capabilities also include counting the number of detected faces and evaluating their age and gender, with the results displayed on the screen as a statistical graph.

Sixth is Panasonic’s ‘P2 Cast,’ a cloud-based news production system trial.

The company is inviting broadcasters to trial its P2 Cast cloud-based news production system in Australia, and expects to commence the trials in early 2016.

P2 Cast leverages the network features of the company’s next-generation P2 HD camcorders with AVC-ULTRA recording - the AJ-PX5000G, AJ-PX800 and AJ-PX270 - so content uploaded to the cloud is immediately available for reviewing and editing.

Footage can quickly and reliably be sent from the field to be prepared for broadcast, so breaking news can immediately be delivered to viewers.

Seventh in Panasonic’s mammoth product launch is what it says is the ‘industry’s first professional 4K integrated PTZ camera,’ the AW-UE70.

The company says this is ‘the professional video industry's first integrated 4K pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) camera.’ and delivers 3840 x 2160 resolution images at 29.97p/25p via HDMI, while also being also capable of 4K IP streaming and in-camera 4K recording.

The AW-UE70 offers crisp 4K footage and precise control for applications including remote studio use, auditoriums and stadiums, lecture and conference rooms, videoconferencing and collaboration, events and reality show production.

Panasonic will also release the AW- SF100G ‘Auto Tracking’ software to enhance the capabilities of PTZ cameras.

For example, a robotic camera can use this software to automatically lock on to a lecturer who is walking back and forth, and follow them so they are always in frame.

Eight is Panasonic’s new high-visibility, high-reliability video wall.

This is the TH-55LVF70 55-inch LED video wall display offers high impact, high reliability and installation flexibility. It is an excellent solution for customers wanting a high-visibility display to promote sales such as car dealerships or boutique clothing stores.

Because video walls ‘stand out from the crowd’ they are ideal for displaying information in large areas from airports to convention centre lobbies.

The video wall has a bezel that is only 3.5mm wide at each join, for a seamless appearance and the panels can be mounted in landscape or portrait mode to suit the application.

Panasonic video walls are also straightforward to install, saving on labour and time. The panels are shipped with colour pre-calibrated so there is no adjustment necessary during installation and the modular mount uses magnets to ensure all panels are perfectly aligned.

Ninth in Panasonic’s tsunami of new products is its ‘scalable optical disc library system’, designed to meet growing demand for long-term data storage, which is increasing at insane rates in today’s digitally driven world.

Panasonic says it has leveraged its optical drive technology, media technology and sophisticated robotics technology to develop the Data Archiver LB-DH8 Series, a scalable optical disc library system that meets the need for long-term storage at data centres, which are increasingly being built and enlarged worldwide.

Panasonic’s Data Archiver allows multiple data storage modules to be configured in a server storage rack according to customer requirements, with high-volume optical disc storage of up to 638.4 terabytes per rack.

Using the benefits of the durability of optical discs, Panasonic says its system ‘can safely and reliably store large volumes of digital data over a long period at low running costs to support customers’ information asset management.’