SecuritySavant

On October 17th, 2007, Schneider Electric purchased all shares of Pelco for $1.54 billion. Pelco was largely considered the last great American manufacturing company in the security industry with an unbeatable reputation for customer service and quality products in the CCTV industry. One of the strong selling points over the years has been the American-made image and it will be interesting to see how the market, especially the U.S. Government, will respond to Pelco now being owned by a French company. As expected, CEO David McDonald has stated that the acquisition only improves the company and is a sign of a bright future, but only time will tell.

Some things that we are keeping a close eye on:

• Schneider also owns TAC, an integrator and considered competitor for Pelco’s existing integrator base
• Schneider also owns Integral Technologies, whose DVR rivaled Pelco’s DX Series DVRs. A joint development effort may combine the strengths of the two.
• Pelco’s reputation for customer service and made in America
• The proprietary nature of Pelco’s Endura platform and their late entry into the IP Camera market

So far, there are no signs of immediate changes, but we plan to track this closely.