3xLOGIC has a vision to provide a fully integrated video, access control and cloud-based managed solution. The acquisition this week of the infinias access control product line provides the missing piece of that vision, says Matthew Kushner, CEO of 3xLOGIC.

“This acquisition is a pure strategic play to create a disruptive solution for cloud-based managed services,” says Kushner. The acquisition includes the infinias brand, its intellectual property and the infinias team, including engineers, tech support and sales employees who will stay in their respective locations. Wayne Jared, former president of infinias, has joined 3xLOGIC as vice president of engineering.

3xLOGIC - infinias product line acquisition – deal outline

In its quest to assemble a full solution, 3xLOGIC approached The Carlyle Group, owner of Observint Technologies, to “carve out” and sell the infinias access control product line. Acquisition talks began six or seven months ago. “We couldn’t find an access control company that met our technical ambitions until we came to infinias,” says Kushner. 3xLOGIC will keep infinias as the name of its access control product line, and will be rebranding individual products (such as the door controller) with the infinias name.

New levels of innovation also come with the deal. “Carlyle was throwing a lot of research and development (R&D) into that business,” says Kushner. “We will benefit from some brilliant R&D on their initiative to implement a cloud-based interface from protected premises.” Kushner adds that the approach of the infinias access control solution “looks identical” to what 3xLOGIC has developed in the VIGIL video solution. “It’s the same approach on two different disciplines,” he says.

A stronger presence in a promising vertical market is another benefit of the acquisition. The transaction will position 3xLOGIC as a technology leader in the multi-tenant market, where each location might have one or two cameras or doors and yet thousands of locations might be tied together in the cloud (and scaled incrementally). The acquisition also boosts 3xLOGIC’s capabilities in its other main verticals – K-12 schools, campus environments, hospitals and retail.

VIGIL video system upgrade

3xLOGIC’s system solution now includes the VIGIL video system, infinias access control and the VIGIL Trends business intelligence engine, which provides a dashboard to enable end users to track and improve metrics that directly impact the success of their business. As the “glue” that holds the system together, VIGIL Trends can interface with multiple data platforms. In addition to being part of an end-to-end solution, the infinias access control product or the VIGIL video product can also stand alone or be interfaced with other platforms.

VIGIL Trends can “slice and dice” a variety of data and display it to business owners in a graphical format to allow them to hone in rapidly on “hot spots” in the enterprise. “The bigger the data pool, the more value we can bring to a business,” says Kushner. Data could be from a door contract, an alarm communication, an invalid card read, or whatever.

3xLOGIC deal focused on disrupting market not consolidation

With the acquisition complete, 3xLOGIC is a now medium-sized company with 120 employees. Kushner doesn’t see the transaction as reflecting the industry trend toward consolidation. He says consolidation is often aimed at combining sales channels and lowering costs, whereas this deal is more about “disrupting” the market and “focusing on where the customer is going.” He sees innovation in the industry coming from smaller companies, such as 3xLOGIC and other “well-funded new entrants in the business promoting cloud-based solutions.”

3xLOGIC implements video in the cloud using a combination of compression technology and a patented scheme to transmit video using lower-bandwidth connections. “We have intelligence built into the engine managing what video goes into the cloud, and storage that is uniquely distributed throughout our devices, which interact with protected premises to pull video into the cloud based on need,” Kushner explains.

“We as an industry have been an epic laggard in adopting technology,” says Kushner. “You look at what Microsoft, Google and Apple have done – they have moved their entire product portfolio into the cloud. The cloud is here. The end user doesn’t want to buy a product, they want to buy a solution, and they want access to that solution from any device.”

The 3xLOGIC approach of combining video, access control and business intelligence in a cloud-based platform differentiates the company from others in the market, he notes. “If you remove any of those elements, you start looking like other companies,” says Kushner. “Those three elements together make us hugely unique in the market.” The infinias acquisition completes that approach.