Motorola Solutions continues buying spree with Videotec acquisition

Motorola Solutions yesterday announced that it has acquired Videotec—a Schio, Italy-based maker of rugged video-security cameras—to expand the manufacturing and design capabilities of its Pelco brand of video-security cameras.

Videotec is the fourth company that Motorola Solutions has bought in the last 10 weeks, following the acquisitions of Ava Security and TETRA Ireland in March, as well as the April purchase of Calipsa. Motorola Solution invested a total $569 million—net of cash—in the four acquisitions, according to information shared yesterday during the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

Terms of the Videotec deal were not disclosed, but Motorola Solutions invested $22 million—net of cash—to buy the Italian firm, according to information provided during the earnings call.

Hamish Dobson, Motorola Solutions’ vice president of product, video security and analytics, said Videotec has established itself in the global market as a designer and manufacturer of video-security cameras that can operate in “extreme-environment” locations. Videotec is certified to produce explosion-proof (intrinsically safe) cameras, ruggedized all-weather cameras, and stainless-steel cameras that can survive the corrosive environment of marine applications, he said.

“In order to be able to sell explosion-proof products that have the right certifications, you need to have a certified facility that is audited every year,” Dobson said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It’s a specialty kind of manufacturing capability, which Videotec has. We’ll continue with that. It’s a critical part of the organization.”

In August 2020, Motorola Solutions bought Pelco, one of the leading video-security camera companies that offers a broad portfolio of outdoor cameras, but it has to rely on third-party vendors to manufacture its extreme-environment products, Dobson said. By acquiring Videotec, Motorola Solutions can manufacture such products within the company.

“Our objective is to have the entirety of the portfolio under the Motorola Solutions manufacturing organization,” Dobson said. “That facility has a role to play, because of its ability to design and manufacture these certified products. It makes a lot of sense for us to fully utilize that facility.”

“We were looking to both broaden our portfolio and bring good design capability under the Pelco umbrella. Videotec really has answers in both of these areas.”

Videotec already is known globally, but its products should benefit from being sold by the massive Motorola Solutions network of channel partners, many of whom already have customer relationship with the critical-infrastructure customers seeking extreme-environment cameras, Dobson said.

“We will definitely move to brand their camera portfolio to Pelco, as well, and make it available on the Pelco price catalog through our extensive global channel,” Dobson said. “I think it’s clear that making those products available through a much broader and more expansive Pelco channel is sort of the initial synergy opportunity here.”

In addition to selling existing Videotec extreme-environment cameras, Motorola Solutions plans to have Videotec engineers work on design projects for new cameras under the Pelco brand, including some initiatives that already are underway, according to Dobson.

“Part of the strategy for Pelco has been to build up our capacity for camera design and development, as well as to broaden the portfolio, so we have a full suite of solutions for customers,” he said.

Dobson emphasized that Pelco and Videotec offer only video-security cameras, whereas Ava Security and Avigilon—a Canada-based video-security firm that Motorola Solutions bought in 2018—enable end-to-end solutions with incorporated software and video-management platforms.

“When software is on the table, you have two choices: Ava Security and Avigilon,” Dobson said. “Ava Security is a cloud-hosted video-management platform, whereas Avigilon is really an on-premise hosted [solution]. That means we can address the needs of customers that are looking for a hosted solution that has like zero maintenance for them or a solution where they want to control the system.

“So, anytime we’re talking about a solution, we lead with Ava Security and Avigilon. The rest of the time—when we’re looking at camera refreshes or there’s an existing piece of software in [the system]—Pelco is very focused on ensuring that those cameras interoperate with the third-party software.”

Motorola Solutions’ purchase of Calipsa—a London-based firm with a cloud-native video-analytics solution that leverages artificial intelligence (AI)—should be a valuable complement across all of Motorola Solutions’ video-security offerings, Dobson said.

“With our whole portfolio, video intelligence is sort of a pervasive theme,” Dobson said. “AI is the most significant technology in physical security since the analog-to-IP transition.

“It has the opportunity to really revolutionize the utility of physical-security systems and take them from a safeguard-for-forensic purposes into more of a proactive type of scenario, where it can help you avoid the bad outcomes respond with more purpose and more effectiveness during events. The Calipsa acquisition … allows us to leverage both cloud and edge AI to realize some of the use cases and capabilities on our roadmap.”

Motorola Solutions officials noted that Videotec complies with existing camera regulations associated with the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that is designed to mitigate foreign security threats—notably from China-based market leaders Hikvision and Dahua—and increasingly becoming a focus for entities beyond the federal government.

If security cameras from these Chinese firms are not an option for U.S. entities in the future or need to be replaced, many industry analysts have indicated that Motorola Solutions’ NDAA-compliant alternatives are well-positioned to claim market share in the future.

Motorola Solution already is showing signs that it is reaping benefits from its video investments, as the company reported that its video-security and access-control sales rose 21% during the first three months of 2022, according to the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

Motorola Solutions has made these four recent purchases at a time when many companies are struggling with a variety of supply-chain, inflationary and COVID-related pressures. CEO Greg Brown hinted that Motorola Solutions officials may not be done.

“Macro-economic turbulence and uncertainty present opportunity, and we will continue to deploy capital against the backdrop of those opportunities that present themselves,” Brown said during yesterday quarterly earnings call.