Sometimes, change can be unsettling. When Motorola announced at the end of November that Motorola Mobility Holdings would split off from Motorola Inc., the first question asked by many in the public safety market was, “How will this affect my work?”
Motorola has long been a communications mainstay for public safety workers. Many police officers, firefighters and first responders rely on Motorola’s communication technology to do their job. A disruption in the effectiveness or quality of their public safety technology could mean big trouble for those who depend on Motorola’s products.
That is why it’s so good to hear that, according to the company, this split will actually improve the quality of Motorola tools used by public safety workers.
Motorola Solutions (as the company will be called after the split) will be better able to focus on mission critical and business critical products, says Kelly Kirwin, head of the North America Government and Commercial Markets group.
“We’re going to be able to divert the right amount of money to the right areas,” Kirwin said. “As Motorola Solutions we’ve been investing $1 billion into new technology that goes into interoperability for business critical and mission critical platforms.”
Looking forward, Kirwin expects an increased focus on next generation solutions like the Project 25 Standard (a suite of communications standards designed to ensure interoperability between public safety organizations) and better situational awareness capabilities.
“Public safety is going to see a lot of attention on solutions what will focus just on them,” Kirwin said. One technology that’s already in the works is next generation 911, which Kirwin says is looking at ways to integrate text messaging into the traditional 911 communications platform.
He also noted that all Motorola’s new technologies will be developed to ensure backwards migration, meaning everything new that comes out will be able to work perfectly with existing technology.
And at the new company, research and development will be more streamlined and less homogenized. The split will free up resources just for public safety without having to go through the same processes as the consumer division.
That’s good news for public safety workers, where an advance in technology can mean saving more lives.
