Motorola Solutions closes deal with Avigilon video-solution provider

Motorola Solutions this week announced that it has completed its purchase of Avigilon, a Canada-based provider of video-surveillance solutions and analytics, for about $1 billion in cash.

Although Motorola Solutions has worked as an integrator on large video projects with partners—notably with the city of Chicago—the Avigilon acquisition gives Motorola Solutions video capabilities that previously were missing from the company’s portfolio, according to Jack Molloy, Motorola Solutions’ executive vice president for worldwide sales and services.

“What Avigilon does, we have nothing to offer in that space,” Molloy said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “The missing element for us has always been video—the analytics and how you make the video more functional. So, it [the Avigilon acquisition] really does complement our portfolio.

“It gives us incremental capability to bring our customers new solutions. I think it’s noteworthy to think that there are a lot of the same people making decisions that we’re talking to and have trusted relationships with today.”

A fast-growing company, Avigilon historically has sold video solutions primarily to small and medium-sized businesses, Molloy said. Motorola Solutions wants Avigilon to continue this work, but a primary goal is to expose the Avigilon video solution platform to the public-safety and government customers that Motorola Solutions serves regularly, he said.

“That’s why they [Avigilon officials] said, ‘Wow, you guys [Motorola Solutions] have long-standing business with the U.S. federal government and have relationships at the state level and CIO level everywhere. You guys can really bring us into public safety, and we think we have the best solution for public safety,’” Molloy said.

“It really is a hand-in-glove kind of fit. We knew that there was going to be a lot of investment in this area, and we thought that we could couple these things together and bring more elegant solution to our customer set in public safety. And we think they [Avigilon] can help us on the commercial side, as well.”

Some of the market-share leaders in the video sector are Chinese-based companies, Molloy said. Given ongoing tensions between China and the United States about intellectual property, a video company that is based in North America could prove to be advantageous, he said.

“They’re growing faster than anybody else in North America—that’s what we liked about Avigilon,” Molloy said. “They manufacture right here in Plano, Texas, so we think that’s something that’s really going to play well in the current environment.”