Saying hello to modern-day Moto could be good call for investors
MOST companies, particularly in the consumer or technology space, will tell you that one of the most important factors for their success is their ‘brand’, especially when the company name is synonymous with the brand. This is why they spend so much money advertising to build their brand in the minds of their customers. But what if your brand is more associated with what you used to be rather than what you are today?
A good example of this could be Motorola, a name which brings back memories of pagers and ‘brick’ type car phones. Yes, younger generation, there was a time when you had a phone in your car that stayed there and wasn’t just your mobile hooked up to a hands-free kit. Some of you might even ask if the company is actually still in business? Well the answer is, yes, sort of.
While still involved in the communications industry, the modern day Motorola — known as Motorola Solutions — bears only passing resemblance to its forefather. Today it’s a leading provider of mission-critical communication infrastructure, devices, software and services.
Public safety and commercial customers turn to Motorola Solutions’ innovations when they want highly connected teams that have the information they need throughout their workdays and in the moments that matter most to them.
Motorola Solutions’ key goal is to connect people through technology. Its customers rely on it for the expertise, services and solutions it provides. The company is best known for its communications products and services to public safety and government agencies (such as law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services, and national government security). The level of technology in the public safety arena in the US is staggeringly low — it consists of old systems from the 1970s and 80s which are not integrated and which involve a lot of duplication of data entry. Believe it or not, there are over six thousand ‘911’ call centres in the US and 80pc of these cannot accept a text message from the public informing them of a fire or crime.
Motorola Solutions has been busy in recent years acquiring smaller companies that expand its product portfolio and technological footprint.
It is now ideally placed to benefit from the growth in its core markets as it can offer (and has already signed up three major cities in the US) a total command centre package based on cloud technology which gives an integrated work-flow solution. This solution can be updated remotely and completely overhauled with minimal disruption to any of the emergency services.
Once clients have put their new network in place, they are not going to rip it out before it becomes obsolete. By using a cloud-based system which can be easily updated, Motorola hopes to elongate the life of the network, and with it, the service and maintenance relationship. This is becoming more important as networks switch from to digital and software-based ones — because customers tend not to have the in-house expertise to runs these next generation networks.
The final part of the offering (video surveillance) comes with the recent acquisition of Avigilon. There is an avalanche of video both in the public and private sectors and their product provide cameras, video analytics, video management, and storage. The key application will be in fighting and preventing crime for police forces, including body cams (pictured) for officers.
Don’t let those ‘brick’ phones dissuade you from taking a look at the Motorola of today.