Ending The Week
As we come close to the end of the another yet busy work week, there is always exciting news happening yet once again in the Biometrics Industry. To me, the news in the Biometrics Industry always comes in dribs and drabs, but once the news comes, it makes the headlines. In other words, to use the analogies, it is feast or famine, or when it rains, it pours. OK, so here is what is happening.
A Major Award
The Biometrics/Security Vendor known as “Lockheed Martin” has just received a major award, and is also making progress in its project with regards to upgrading a massive Biometrics database. Here are the details into this: “Lockheed Martin has been named the North American Biometrics Operations and Integrations "Company of the Year" by Frost and Sullivan, recognizing the Corporation's success in delivering innovative biometrics solutions that offer high levels of customer value . . . Frost and Sullivan based the award on a rigorous analysis of the biometrics marketplace, including factors such as customer value, industry leadership, growth and performance. The award was presented at the Frost and Sullivan Best Practices Award Banquet, April 12, 2011, in Marco Island, Fla.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/8825/). Here are the details into them with upgrades into the database: “The Lockheed Martin led Next Generation Identification (NGI) team is beginning to fully develop and deploy a capability that will enhance the FBI’s latent fingerprint matching accuracy and introduce palm print matching to the system. Development efforts began after a successful Critical Design Review (CDR) for the system’s Increment 3 . . . The milestone came just weeks after the FBI declared Initial Operating Capability on NGI’s Increment 1 fingerprint matching capability.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/8821/). To be honest, I was sort of surprised to hear that this Biometrics Vendor actually won this award. They are no doubt a force to be reckoned with in terms of Biometrics, but I really thought that the award would come down to a Biometrics Vendor with a Biometrics sounding name, devoted exclusively to the industry. When I think of Lockheed Martin, I always think of aircraft and aircraft engines (probably because the image of the L-1011keeps coming to my mind). This award was based upon a number of key factors, which included customer value, performance, growth, and various types and kinds leadership attributes. My hats off to this Biometrics Vendor. With regards to the second part, remember some time ago I had written some stuff about the AFIS database being replaced by a new database called “NGIS”??? Essentially, this is a massive and gargantuan database which can hold tons of Biometric Templates, primarily Fingerprint Recognition Biometric Templates. I am not going to rehash all of the details again here, but it is a rather significant milestone that the 3rd phase is now being reached. Apparently, this database is now up and running, and even operational, to some degree. This new database will provide law enforcement officials with much more efficient and effective access to the Fingerprint Biometric Templates, focusing upon criminals like wanted persons, sex offenders, terrorists, etc.
A Partnership Announced
Two rather large Biometrics/Security Vendors has just announced a strategic partnership, and these are “ADITime”, and “Ingersoll Rand Security”. They both specialize in Time and Attendance applications. Here are the details of this: “ADI Time, a developer of cloud computing time and attendance management software-as-a-service (SaaS) for small- to mid-sized businesses and divisions of large enterprises, has established a partnership with Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, a leading global provider of hand geometry-based Schlage HandPunch biometric terminals for collecting time and attendance information. The business partnership entails purchase of Schlage Biometrics' full product line, including F-Series and the new GT-400 HandPunch terminals, directly . . . To complement our popular SaaS subscription service and licensed time and attendance software, ADI Time was seeking a strong alliance with a leading provider of biometric terminals in order to address the needs of our partner and user communities," explains ADI Time CEO John DiPippo. "Partnering with Ingersoll Rand provides us with both a uniquely differentiated product via Schlage's hand readers, and a direct relationship with an organization that has the size, product breadth, and industry leadership to ensure we are in the best position to delight our customers and maximize market exposure.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/8822/). Ingersoll Rand is one of those Biometrics Vendors which have been basically around since the start of time. They have pioneered the development of Hand Geometry Recognition, and I know this for a fact, because I used to sell these devices in my first Biometrics business. The Hand Geometry Scanners are used for both Physical Access Entry as well as Time and Attendance applications. To me, this partnership is very unique. How so? Well, ADITime specializes in creating workforce management solutions are cloud based, or also known as “SaaS”, and the details of this can be seen in the above quote. For the longest time, I have always been advocating of having Biometrics as a hosted solution. True, there is Voice Recognition which is already a hosted application, but this partnership makes this possibility into that much of a reality. For instance, Hand Geometry Recognition is probably the oldest of the Biometric Technologies around, and having this as a hosted solution will be a great boon for many customers who rely upon Biometrics for their Time and Attendance needs. From my understanding, ADITime will be providing the hosted component, and Ingersoll Rand Security will be providing the hardware component, which is the Hand Geometry Scanners. It will truly be interesting to see how things turn out here. I will keep my eyes on it. Oh, and remember just yesterday I had written a Posting about some recent buyout activity??? Well, my projection is that there could be some of these Security Vendors with hosted application tying up with Biometrics Vendors in order to provide what I call “BaaS”: Biometrics as a Service.
Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright.
Posted by: Belstaff leather | January 16, 2012 at 07:12 AM