“I don’t think our industry has done a great job of being plug and play,” he says. “We have passed this on to the integrator to figure this stuff out, and that is where the difficulty lies. We would have a lot more integrators out there if our industry and manufacturers would do a better job of ease of integration and plug and play.”
Manufacturers Must Be Able to Work Together
Dave Bujak, who is the emergency manager for Florida State University (FSU), believes that emergency notification competitors need to develop the ability to work together for the good of their campus clients. FSU recently partnered with Siemens to develop a centralized activation portal for the school’s FSU ALERT emergency notification system. The process was challenging, in part, because business competitors had to collaborate so their equipment would interoperate.
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“As more institutions follow in FSU’s footsteps and seek to consolidate, integrate and create their own easy buttons, their clients will be demanding that they work with Siemens and other integration companies,” Bujak says.
Of course, with all of the changes that have been occurring in the emergency notification market recently, this type of instability can make it challenging for companies to develop partnerships with other manufacturers. What will the new solutions look like two years from now? What part, if any, will GPS (see GPS Integration: The Next Step for SMS Text Alerts? on page 13) and CMAS/WEA play?
Campus protection professionals, such as Andrew Altizer, the director of emergency preparedness for Georgia Tech, understand this and are keeping a close eye on the market and technology.
“I have a feeling that in the next few years it will look completely different with more automation and coordination with other government agencies.”
Photo via Flickr, mark sebastian
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