Motorola Solutions acquires Cyfas Systems assets geared for European emergency call centers

Motorola Solutions today announced its purchase of the Mobile Assets Communications Systems (MACS) and related Integrated Communications Control System (ICCS) products from United Kingdom-based holding company Cyfas Systems that are expected to help European emergency-call centers transition to next-generation platforms.

Existing Motorola Solutions products provide the same call-handling, radio-console and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) functionality as the MACS and ICCS, but they do not work with European and East African emergency call centers, according to Tom Guthrie, Motorola Solutions’ vice president of smart public-safety solutions.

“It’s the same types of functions, but it’s not exactly assembled in the same way as you do it in the U.S.—it’s the combination that fits in the European market, based on the way that they divide up their command-and-control operations,” Guthrie said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We already have the capabilities in North America; we just didn’t have them in the system combination that [Europe and East Africa] normally buys.”

With the MACS, Motorola Solutions expects to be positioned to help Great Britain’s emergency call centers have a multi-technology platform that lets them operate on both the existing TETRA system and the LTE-based Emergency Services Network that is being deployed, according to a Motorola Solutions press release about the acquisition.

MACS leverages cloud-based technologies that are accessed via reliable private-network connectivity, which improves agility and removes the need to maintain on-site IT infrastructure, according to the press release. If a network outage prevents the call center from accessing the cloud, minimum core functionality can be retained at the premise, Guthrie said.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Employees that operate and develop the MACS technology will be relocated to a still-to-be-determined Airwave office location that will be within “drivable” distance for the employees, according to Guthrie. No job cuts are expected as a result of the acquisition, he said.

“No—in fact, we’re going to be growing this quite a bit,” Guthrie said.