Motorola’s getting tough on crime in South Africa: here’s how

Violent crime is on the rise in South Africa, and Motorola is developing new technologies to help combat it. The LA Times reports South Africa has one of the worst violent crime rates in the world, and attempted murder rates have risen by more than six percent in the last year. Motorola has developed new technologies intended to curb the crime rate in urban areas, but that’s not all they’ve been working on.

Command and Control

Motorola command centers create a unified point-of-view for dispatchers. Motorola’s site explains how their systems allow users to view video, listen to voice, read text, and peruse data sent from a variety of sources, including sensors, alarms and citizens themselves. According to MotorolaSolutions.com, operators can then distribute that collected information to police or emergency services in the field through data devices or radio systems. Additionally, Connected Law Enforcement Officer technology launched this year will aid officers in the field in staying safe by providing critical voice and data, such as regularly updated danger warnings, and provide operators with health and status monitoring for officers.

Business Day Live reports that currently 99% of the data available in South Africa to help combat crime is not used at all. Motorola’s command and control centers would give South African police and emergency services the ability to access this data, sort it, and use it when they need it most. Motorola has also strove to make this technological investment a long-lasting and user-friendly system that will remain viable and usable long into the future.

Command and control centers are just one of the many new technological directions Motorola has branched into over the last few years.

Motorola Shifts Gears

Motorola is constantly adapting and innovating, whether it be in Motorola accessories from the Wireless Boys, or in VML 700 LTE Vehicle emergency modems, as reported by Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry Online. Motorola may have stumbled in the race to develop the next tablet device or smartphone, ultimatately leading to it splitting in tow but the part not owned by Google has also become a leading provider of firefighting communications technology, police and emergency dispatch systems, and interoperable communications devices.

Motorola started to change its product strategy in 2012, and began making fewer phones and shifted towards product development and design, returning to its roots. Motorola was the developer of the first commercial barcode scanner, as well a lauded developer of first — and second — generation business LAN structures.

What’s Next for Motorola

The Google-owned section of Motorola isn’t doing too badly either. In fact, the Financial Post recently reported Motorola Mobility is establishing new offices in Ontario, in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. While this region of Ontario does offer a bustling startup environment full of developing mobile talent, it is also interestingly home to mobile device kingpin BlackBerry. GigaOM reports BlackBerry recently was forced to lay off more than 4 500 employees and suffered a staggering blow of nearly a billion dollars in inventory loss. Could Motorola be gearing up to poach now jobless tech professionals and mobile developers from the once prestigious ranks of BlackBerry?

While Motorola may have stumbled, it seems to be finding its footing again. Sadly, it doesn’t seem as though the same can be said of BlackBerry, the one-time leader of the smartphone game. With its once enormous market share consumed slowly by Apple over the last decade, BlackBerry never seemed to recover or move quickly enough to keep up with the market. Motorola seems primed to jump back into the ring with new talent and ideas, and ready to fill the gap left by BlackBerry.

What’s your opinion of Motorola’s moves? Let us know in the comments section.

Image: Tex Texin