Contact: Scott Denne, Mark Fontecchio
Motorola continues to look to software and services to rescue its hardware business. The acquisition of Spillman Technologies is the latest in a string of such deals by the radio communications company, which has spent the past five years getting back to its legacy business in public safety through a spinoff and several divestitures. Those moves brought it relief from several price-sensitive commodity markets but left it in one with little growth – there aren’t a lot of new fire departments and police stations that have yet to invest in a radio system.
Acquiring Spillman Technologies, a developer of dispatch and records management software for police and fire agencies, gives Motorola a software offering to push into a sector where it’s entrenched. That’s similar to the rationale behind its two other recent software purchases: PublicEngines and Emergency CallWorks.
In addition to market maturity, weakness in foreign sales has also pushed down revenue for Motorola’s hardware products, yet its managed services business has grown. Its $1.2bn acquisition of Airwave Solutions in February drove 26% year-over-year growth in its services segment last quarter (organically, that unit grew in the low-single digits). While services still makes up less than half of its roughly $6bn topline, the combination of Motorola’s hardware and existing network management services along with Airwave’s network management business provides it a channel through which it can push new offerings and grab share in a market it already dominates. Motorola’s public-safety business is 10 times the size of Harris, its nearest competitor.
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