Baran spins off Access Solutions biz

MISSION VALLEJO, Calif.--After six years and as many as 30,000 units sold, Baran Advanced Technologies, a division of the global engineering firm The Baran Group, has spun off its Barantec access control business into a new company, Baran Access Solutions. Bill Newill, most recently vice president at Secura Key, will run the new company as president, based out of new offices here. Newill said the product line has been basically unattended for the last four years and he has been brought on to “provide some impetus.” That impetus will come, he said, from Baran’s patented Piezo technology, which allows keypads to be made from a single milled piece of metal, with no moving parts. “We have a niche because of the type of product,” he said. “We have next to no competition ... It offers a high level of security, durability, and it’s maintenance-free. If you’re talking about outdoor applications, near the ocean for instance-ports would be perfect-any kind of industrial use where there’s a need for heavy cleaning. All those environments wreak havoc on plastics. Those are perfect opportunities to take advantage of this particular product.” He said Baran AS will not go the dealer route to market, but will focus on distribution (he said to expect ADI) and the OEM marketplace. Integrators might want to private-label the keypads, for example, which can come with prox, mag-stripe, iClass readers and any combination of those technologies. He said to look for a biometric reader in the near future as well. Nor will installers need any new skills: “It’s just like hooking up a reader or a keypad. It’s exactly the same thing.”