Published on the 11/11/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
There was something of a “groundhog day” feel to the opening of Motorola Solutions’ Melbourne based innovation centre this week despite the room bristling with the latest mobile technology…
Motorola Solutions opened its innovation centre in Melbourne three years ago, with the then Victorian Minister for technology Gordon Rich handling the ribbon cutting. This week it opened its innovation centre all over again – this time with Philip Dalidakis, minister for innovation and trade officiating.
According to Steve Crutchfield, managing director of Motorola Solutions for ANZ and the Pacific, where the last innovation centre was a demonstration unit, now refurbished it will be more about collaboration with clients and prospects. It also has a focus on the next generation mobile intelligence platforms being deployed by emergency services and major industries.
Motorola must be hoping that the current incarnation of the innovation centre is more than marketing’s window dressing. With global revenues forecast to drop between 6 and 8 percent during the current quarter, on top of a 1 percent fall for the third quarter, the company is looking to drum up new business globally.
According to Bloomberg reports earlier this year, it had also been looking for new owners, but after failing to find a buyer for the business, it instead secured a $US1 billion injection from private equity business SilverLake that has allowed it to step up its investment in new technology.
In Australia the company has had recent success selling its next generation mobile intelligence systems to Australia’s public order and emergency services, as well as industry.
In February it signed a $41.5 million deal with Victoria’s police and ambulance services; in April it announced a seven year, $175 million contract to upgrade and manage the South Australian government’s radio network. Crutchfield said about 60 percent of local revenues derived from public safety related technology deployments, with the remainder mainly from heavy industry.
Prabhakar Rajagopal, vice president of solutions and services for the company in Asia Pacific and the Middle East said that the challenge for all organisations was to transition; “From mission critical information to mission critical intelligence” systems. This he said allowed agencies to move from reacting and responding to “anticipating and predicting”.
However for the emergency services in Australia, Motorola stressed the importance of a successful conclusion to the current debates about allocation of spectrum for emergency services mobile communications channels.
The company took the opportunity to demonstrate a series of its technologies, including newly released devices which can be worn by police or other services to allow hands free communication, and video capture. It also outlined a series of software platforms, including Command Central Analytics, which brings together a range of data and three specially written algorithms to predict the time, location and type of crimes likely in a certain area, allowing police to take preventive action. The company claimed its predictive algorithms were already proving accurate in 25-30 percent of cases.
The author attended the opening as a guest of Motorola Solutions
