Original developers re-release Phoenix software bought from MDI

ROUND ROCK, Texas--American Business Monitoring System, a software development company, in June will release significant upgrades to its recently purchased central station software platform, Phoenix. The company, which was formed in July 2007 and employs several of the original developers of the Phoenix software, purchased ABM Data Systems and the Phoenix platform from command-and-control software maker MDI Security Systems in September 2007. Details of the purchase were not disclosed. "The June release will be a new upgrade to the existing software," said Scott Lawson, president of American Business Monitoring System. "The upgrade will be very simple with no hardware configuration required, just a software upgrade ... it will provide [central stations] with a new reporting application and a new archive/purge utility as a few of the things we have planned." In addition to the upgrade, known as Phoenix x.4.1.3, American Business Monitoring System anticipates the release of a new product in the fall of 2008, which it hopes will further the software's integration into the commercial market. "We need to catch up in some [development] areas in order to be competitive in the commercial central station market," said Lawson. "Most Phoenix customers are proprietary central stations, but in order to play in the larger market, we know we need to have an integrated accounting package. We're working on making that available in the fall also." For more on this story see the June issue of Security Systems News.