Archive: June 2010
The price conversation continues with a Provident argument
June 30, 2010Daniel Gelinas
I wrote a while back about a central station called Mason Monitoring that was embarked on a campaign to undersell the competition with unbeatably low monitoring prices. That story sparked kind of an uproar from some of my readers who thought my news reporting constituted endorsing the Mason brand. At that point I decided it would be a good idea to take a look at price and examine whether it was the most important factor in a service industry.
I recently came across an interesting tweet from Canadian...
Halma shopping for fire companies
June 29, 2010Martha Entwistle
CINCINNATI—Halma Holdings, a global conglomerate that owns a number of fire and security manufacturing companies, announced June 22 it wants to buy more fire and security manufacturing companies, and it's got $150 million earmarked for acquisitions.
Halma's subsidiaries are mostly based abroad, so it is particularly interested, said David Leighty, Halma Holdings group acquisition manager, in establishing a stronger foothold in the North American market. “It will help us with the distribution...
Who was monitoring that sperm?
June 29, 2010Martha Entwistle
A British Columbia Supreme Court judge ruled last week that a class-action lawsuit regarding the possibly negligent destruction of frozen sperm can go forward. Headline writers around the world, like myself, rejoiced.
But there's a security angle here, which even gets back to my long-time gripe that the mainstream media just refuses to acknowledge the security industry as real and important.
Basically, some guys had their sperm being stored at University of BC when the power went out, there wasn't...
Busy month continues for Stanley
June 29, 2010L. Samuel Pfeifle
NAPERVILLE, Ill.—After a relatively inactive spring on the acquisition front, Stanley CSS made two buys in two weeks, following up last week's Sonitrol of the Tri-State buy with a purchase this week of Sonitrol of Allentown, a Sonitrol franchise since 1979, located in Allentown, Pa. According to Stanley, the sale includes mostly commercial accounts including retail, restaurant, industrial, financial, service and education customers being serviced throughout eastern Pennsylvania.
John and Carmen...
Security and the Red Herring 100
June 29, 2010Martha Entwistle
So, the Red Herring 100 for North America were announced at a party on June 24. I know this mostly because Avigilon sent me a press release about them getting named to the list.
And good for them, but it's not like I was eagerly awaiting the list. As Red Herring will tell you, “Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Hotmail, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work.”
But, well,...
SGPTI positions cameras virtually
June 29, 2010L. Samuel Pfeifle
MONTREAL—When designing where to hang cameras, how useful would it be to know almost exactly what a camera's view would be before ever turning a screw? According to Daniel Jeanson, president of integrator SGPTI, pretty useful: “We used to spend days on site figuring out how to position the cameras. Now we don't have to.”
That's because SGPTI is using Feeling Software's Omnipresence 3D to create virtual models of the buildings and campuses in which the company is working. “As...
Telular launches new dealer initiative
June 28, 2010Daniel Gelinas
PITTSBURGH—Telular at the ESX show here launched a new dealer program exclusively focused on giving security dealers the tools to break their dependence on landlines for a profitable, wireless business.
According to Telular VP marketing Shawn Welsh, the program will be beneficial to dealers in an era of disappearing landlines. “You'll remember with the analog sunset a lot of independent dealers—the small to medium independents—were caught more off guard than a lot of the larger...
Portable surveillance comes to the Droid
June 28, 2010Daniel Gelinas
I wrote a while back about this company mobiDEOS that was allowing you to access your cameras from any web enabled device, including your iPhone. Now it looks like they've done up an app for the Android as well, which is good, since one of the many security guys I met at ESX said his only wish was that there were more security related apps for his Droid phone.
Well, here you go.
MobiDEOS is a provider of applications, technologies and services to help users realize the value and potential of live...
Eagle keeps an eye on governor's mansion
June 28, 2010Martha Entwistle
SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Until recently, the California Governor's Mansion here had very little in the way of fire protection and electronic security.
“They basically had nothing,” said Leo Weiss, president and CEO of Eagle Security, who just finished installing a new Bosch fire and security systems (donated by Bosch) at the mansion. The mansion hasn't been used as a residence for the governor since Ronald Reagan was governor, but it's a much-visited historic home that's sited on a state...
This Blog's on Fire (And Other Stuff)
Pro One draws from ADT well again
June 28, 2010Tess Nacelewicz
Pro One has hired another former ADT exec for its sales team. The company announced last week, that Joe Mac McConnell will join the company as VP of commercial and residential sales. He'll report to Bob Dale, SVP commercial and residential sales, who also came from ADT.
While at ADT, McConnell served as vice president of both residential and small business for ADT North America.
From the release:
“[McConnell] is outstanding at developing and delivering disciplined sales programs that build...