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From tracking vehicles to getting alarm messages to technicians and clients, dealers now use global positioning, hand-held devices and wireless in innovative ways.
RUSS Cersosimo knows how important technology is to his business. The president of Guardian Protection, Pittsburgh, Pa., says he's most recently equipping about 200 vehicles with global positioning systems (GPS) to better manage his fleet. Soon after, he plans to offer GPS services to clients. It's obvious that technology is hot for Cersosimo.
You don't have to sell new technology to Steve Ballmer either.
The chief executive of Microsoft, Ballmer has a satellite telephone with a hidden security feature. When he holds down the number 9 key for a few seconds, Ballmer's security detail can locate his position, track him and listen into any situation in which the executive finds himself on the road.
Either separately or used together, global positioning and technologies that send and receive messages to mobile workers and alarm owners have kicked electronic security up a notch.
A HISTORY LESSON
Sometimes, such innovations are home-grown by dealers and systems integrators; more often, the new services come from central station monitoring firms, companies that write and sell monitoring software, and "new faces" with emerging niche products. Telecommunications companies and even car manufacturers are getting into the business, too.
Just like sensor and detector technologies after World War II, GPS, developed as a satellite navigation system, was funded and controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense for military applications for many years. More recently, the government has permitted commercial use of certain levels of GPS.
On the commercial side and specific to locating and tracking applications, the biggest boost in GPS came when it partnered with wireless communications. That advance has taken GPS beyond the lost hiker in the national park to fleet management and even homeowners wanting to track a son or daughter on the road.
Cersosimo of Guardian Protection is working with Irvine, Calif.-based Monitoring Automation Systems (MAS), a provider of security automation software, on his internal vehicle monitoring system. He already sees a future of recurring income by partitioning a version of the system to clients.
The MAS system called MASterMind consists of an in-vehicle unit that contains a GPS receiver and a wireless modem;...