Less than a week ago, Assa Abloy announced its acquisition of LifeSafety Power (LSP). One week later, the LSP portfolio was on display at GSX. I caught up with Assa Abloy Senior Product Manager David Corbin on the show floor in Chicago to get his comments on the acquisition:
What message is Assa Abloy giving to current LifeSafety Power customers?
The big message that we want to get out right now is that for LSP and their customers it is business as usual. All of the principles, all of the employees are staying on. We want to give them to capital and expertise to grow. They have grown into a substantial sized company and we are going to take them the rest of the way. It is a nice additional piece of the puzzle. It won’t fundamentally change the way we or LSP goes to market and develop products.
Will LifeSafety Power keep their name and branding?
Absolutely. We want to take advantage of the name they have built in the industry. They have very good market presence and very good recognition with the name and we want to continue with that.
How does the LSP technology integrate with Securitron and other Assa Abloy branded power solutions?
The future right now is a blank slate. I am meeting with them next week and we will sit down and look at costs feature sets, pricing go-to-market, and what you will see is we will rationalize the portfolio a little bit because there is some crossover in the Securitron AQ and their FPO portfolio. Some things will go away some will stay but the goal is to go to market with a good better best strategy. What that looks like, whether it is an LSP or a Securitron product ...it is really still a blank slate. We are entirely open to whatever makes sense for the joint organization.
LSP makes products that integrate with other companies like Software House and Mercury - will those integrations mesh with Assa Abloy?
If you go and look at the list of all of LSP’s integration partners and compare it to the list of all of Assa Abloy’s integration partners on Aperio and IP, those sorts of products, 70 percent of all of Assa Abloy’s integration partners are also LifeSafety Power partners. They are very complementary. Assa Abloy wants our hardware to work with everybody, and the LifeSafety Power acquisition doesn’t change that. We want to integrate with everybody and be as open as possible, using that software openness to move hardware.
Paul Rothman is Editor-in-Chief of Security Business magazine. Pick up a free copy at GSX booth 1929, or visit www.securitybusinessmag.com.
