IDA recently launched its Trak-it Data Engine (TiDE) technology, a data-management platform that is designed to help the two-way radio industry move into data-centric high-growth areas, such as location-based services, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and the Internet of Things.

Unveiled at IWCE 2015 in Las Vegas, TiDE is an open-source data-management platform that serves as middleware, a data router, a data-acquisition application, a data-transport vehicle and a data consolidator “for diverse data sources built on industry standards,” according to a company press release.

TiDE is designed to help LMR network operators address some key pain points: users’ increased data demands, the need for more data applications, and the need to ensure that data from different types of radios is interoperable, according to IDA President and CEO Sanjay Patel.

“Somebody has to integrate those radios into one big giant application,” Patel said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “I’m not talking about voice communications; they’re already doing that. But all of these location-based services have to be on a platform where different brands of radios can exchange data. No radio manufacturer likes to talk to the other manufacturer’s radio, because they want to sell more radios.

“Independent companies like IDA have come up with an engine like TiDE, which can tie all of the radios into one big radio network through data exchange. We can talk all languages, including cellular and mobile tablets. Now, you can imagine a super network, and it doesn’t matter whose hardware it is or whose software it is.”

Launching the TiDE platform is the latest step in IDA’s transformation from being a company best known for its remote-control devices to one that is focused on data-oriented products, Patel said.

“Stop thinking about IDA as an old remote-control company,” he said. “It is not a boring remote-control company anymore. It is at the forefront of what [the radio industry] needs, which is IP communications—something they don’t have.”

Daivesh Sanghvi, IDA’s executive vice president of business development, echoed this sentiment.

“TiDE brings us to center stage in the industry, because there is hardly any other company that is talking about data only, so we are really the change agent in the industry right now.

“As far as the data part is concerned and data management is concerned in the radio world, I think that we’re the only company that is really talking about it, has a product in place and a future roadmap in place.”