Intrado buys Contact One

Intrado yesterday announced the acquisition of 911 geographic information system (GIS) solutions vendor Contact One in a deal that is designed to expand Intrado’s offerings to public-safety answering points (PSAPs) and enhance the development of future solutions.

By purchasing Contact One, 911 solutions provide Intrado is positioned to tap into a new market segment of the GIS arena, said Dami Hummel, vice president and general manager of the Intrado’s mobility division.

“We have GIS services today, but the products are different,” Hummel said in an interview. “We support GIS in an effort for wireless and VoIP customers. A different customer base within the public-safety arena is the PSAPs, state and counties. We have not done that, so we are expanding out into primarily the PSAP portion of that.”

In addition to acquiring Contact One’s GIS portfolio that is “proven and heavily adopted within public safety already,” Intrado’s GIS team and Contact One’s GIS personnel will be collaborating to develop new solutions with enhanced functionality for existing systems and next-generation 911, Hummel said.

“Joining forces with Intrado is the catalyst to unleash more tightly integrated GIS management systems and GIS database solutions,” Contact One CEO Jerry Merlick said in a prepared statement. “Together, we will better meet the needs of public safety clients and accelerate the transition to next-generation 911.”

For Austin, Texas–based Contact One, the deal also means the private company’s portfolio will be able to benefit from Intrado’s sales force to accelerate usage in the mark, Hummel said.

“We looked at a variety of GIS companies, and we believe that — for the product suite that Contact One offers — they were the superior product in the industry,” she said. “However, they didn’t have a large sales team. We offer Contact One the scalability to more quickly penetrate the public-safety market, because we have a very large sales force and we already have existing relationships in public safety.”

Hummel said the terms of the deal for Contact One — a private firm — will not be disclosed. Contact One employees will be integrated into Intrado offices near existing Contact One locations during the next quarter.