Don't forget Tyco too....
Ick. Buy the company, push the products with very light engineering behind them, then "patch" the results in firmware. AD is on my list of "never again" hardware and software, their products seem to have constant issues, let alone tech support providing blatently incorrect processes, but we're limited to what is spec'd out. In AD's case, they had a client and server software (as well as NVR's) that was so buggy that they abandoned the whole product line and software, necessatating a entire software and firmware upgrade for cameras, encoders, NVR's, servers, clients, and lo and behold, the new software is far more bloated, so the client PC's that they spec'd out and their engineers (onsite during ofupgrades) stated were fine, no longer worked or constantly crashed. They had to eat the cost to replace 2400 cameras and the equivalent number of NVR's (32 channels each) and related data center storage to allow 15IPS@ 2CIF for a retention minimum of 2 years....because they could never get it to work, with their engineers onsite at least once a week.
SWH, specifically C*Cure 9000, isn't perfect, but it's far better than 800 and the related issues. Hardware is sometimes hit or miss (we've had plenty of bad ACM's or funky things wrong with them). Flexible, yes, but I hate building 10001 events just to get a door prop or force where others like Amag, DSX and CK just have check boxes (and they work).
DSC...oh boy, where to start with them. Build quality on panels out of the box, we had 3 skids worth that all had some sort of issue. Before their new OEM wireless manufacturer, their RF had huge issues...like not working at all unless you didn't mount it. We also had a entire connex's worth of smokes with multiple date codes go back because of not being calibrated at the factory (huge tech note and recall after we discovered that one). Can't count how many DOA's we got with all of their hardware across the board, from reversing relays to PIR's and GBD's that could not physically be tripped.
I'm not huge to bash a manufacturer's product, but honestly, Tyco across their divisions are pretty shabby. GE at least seemed to maintain the build quality, even though they really haven't engineered a new product or product line from the ground up since they bought all these divisions. I would not recommend any GE video product however.