Shawn Mullen has his LinkedIn app running while on the road. “When I see a place that I’ve not called on before, I can park, LinkIn for a contact name, Google the contact on the Droid for a phone number, and then touch the link to call from the Jeep without need of my laptop or finding a Wi-Fi connection,” says Mullen, who is with Protex Central.
You don’t have to beat yourself up over making more money on the service and maintenance (S&M) side of the business. This slice of the total pie is growing. “It makes up roughly 40 percent of our total revenue,” says Darryl Keeler of Tech Systems, the Duluth, Ga., enterprise electronic security systems integrator. Some other firms say they pull in 70 to 80 percent of revenue from S&M.
The pieces are finally falling into place. For today’s systems integrators, a first step was seamlessly bringing together myriad security and life safety systems beyond yesterday’s hand-off interfacing.
Tired of all those silly laws? Weary of the tax-sapping and job-killing regulations? Critical of bureaucrats that make decisions but don’t know or care about your business? Listening too much to the cable and radio talking heads spinning out doom and gloom?
First the gloom. As America and probably the world heads to a double dip of economic malaise, retailers aren’t expecting over-heated cash registers. With high unemployment and dipping morale of sales associates, there is the expectation of more shrinkage — retail’s term for losses due primarily to shoplifting and employee theft. Then there is the growing threat of organized retail crime; gangs fine focused and able to steal more and turn the goods into cash more quickly.
There are 240 miles of Cat5e and four miles of fiber. There are nearly 150 cameras, all IP-based and power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled. The cameras integrate with electronic access controls, which include biometrics. There is Wi-Fi inside the concrete-challenging facility and some staff have Android phones for text and email communications during operations and security incidents.
Avatar is so yesterday. After a push for home 3D-enabled televisions, spurred by the popularity of the movie, those 3D televisions are still a glimmer in the eyes of manufacturers as well as a dusty product on big box store shelves. Still, in the world of high definition, some TV makers, thanks to a Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored study, have recently shifted their programming to emphasize...