Tyco -> Harris

[EngineerZ]

Heads-up! The (originally) GE radio business is being sold again, this time to Harris. You're going to have to start referring them to as GE / Ericsson / Comnet / M/A-COM / Tyco / Harris. They hadn't even finished transitioning from M/A-COM to the Tyco name. I swear, they should just put a piece of velcro where the name plate is on the their radios...

Tyco Electronics Announces Definitive Agreement to Sell Its Wireless Systems Business to Harris Corporation for $675 Million; Announces Preliminary Fiscal Second Quarter Results - Apr 16, 2009

Tyco Electronics Announces Definitive Agreement to Sell Its Wireless Systems Business to Harris Corporation for $675 Million; Announces Preliminary Fiscal Second Quarter Results

PEMBROKE, Bermuda, April 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Tyco Electronics Ltd. today announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Wireless Systems business to Harris Corporation for $675 million in cash, subject to final working capital adjustments. Wireless Systems is a leader in the development of large-scale critical communications systems based on Internet Protocol (IP) technology for customers in the public safety, utility, transit and public service industries. The business generated sales of $461 million in fiscal 2008.

According to Tyco Electronics Chief Executive Officer Tom Lynch, "The sale of the Wireless Systems business will increase our focus on our core connectivity business and substantially completes the streamlining of our portfolio that we began two years ago. Wireless Systems is an ideal fit for Harris, whose size, resources and experience in the communications industry should help position the business for accelerated growth."

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the summer of 2009. Tyco Electronics will report the results of the Wireless Systems business as a discontinued operation beginning with its fiscal third quarter, ending June 26, 2009.

[ElroyJetson]

Harris is a highly competent organization that makes few mistakes. I have no doubt that whatever they choose to do with the former Tyco property, it will work out well for Harris.

They're buying, among other things, a big fat stack of long-term maintenance agreements with many
agencies that will be very profitable in and of themselves, over the years to come.

I think you'll never hear "OpenSky" again. I fully expect Harris to retire it as soon as possible and
provide low cost or free P25 upgrades to those few poor unfortunate saps who bought that OpenSky dog.

My guess is that the legacy GE-to-Tyco products will be phased out fairly quickly, to be replaced
entirely by Harris-designed or at least Harris-updated products. I'm confident that Harris has the
engineering expertise to create far superior radio products. Their RF expertise is broad and deep
and reaches into markets and fields where our most sophisticated P25 digital radios look like toys.

I think this will mark the end of the GE legacy, in time. What you will have instead is Harris-branded
conventional and trunking radio equipment with legacy support for EDACS and related trunking systems.

I think ESK will be retired soon, too.

These are my guesses and predictions ONLY. I have no insider information, just some semi-educated guesses here.

Elroy

[N_Jay]

Harris >> Low cost? Are we talking about the same company?

[kb9sxk]

Originally Posted by ElroyJetson

Harris is a highly competent organization that makes few mistakes. I have no doubt that whatever they choose to do with the former Tyco property, it will work out well for Harris.

They're buying, among other things, a big fat stack of long-term maintenance agreements with many
agencies that will be very profitable in and of themselves, over the years to come.

I think you'll never hear "OpenSky" again. I fully expect Harris to retire it as soon as possible and
provide low cost or free P25 upgrades to those few poor unfortunate saps who bought that OpenSky dog.

My guess is that the legacy GE-to-Tyco products will be phased out fairly quickly, to be replaced
entirely by Harris-designed or at least Harris-updated products. I'm confident that Harris has the
engineering expertise to create far superior radio products. Their RF expertise is broad and deep
and reaches into markets and fields where our most sophisticated P25 digital radios look like toys.

I think this will mark the end of the GE legacy, in time. What you will have instead is Harris-branded
conventional and trunking radio equipment with legacy support for EDACS and related trunking systems.

I think ESK will be retired soon, too.

These are my guesses and predictions ONLY. I have no insider information, just some semi-educated guesses here.

Elroy

I agree....

EDACS is just a bit closer to death

[mancow]

LOL... I think not!

Originally Posted by N_Jay

Harris >> Low cost? Are we talking about the same company?

[kb9sxk]

Originally Posted by mancow

LOL... I think not!

However...Quality!

[ElroyJetson]

I think Harris will make every reasonable effort to keep the migration costs for P25 trunking as low as possible, for their legacy users, when Harris decides to discontinue the legacy system types.

I mean, let's face facts: The only thing holding a lot of the currently deployed M/A-Com radios back from
being P25 trunking enabled is just a matter of a feature string change and a new radio code/DSP update.
I can imagine that Harris would say "Upgrade your site equipment and we'll give you a great deal on
software and feature upgrades on your legacy radios that can be upgraded."

Harris isn't spending a lot of money to acquire the radio business, relatively speaking. They can afford
to be a little generous to their new customer base and it doesn't cost much to sit at a computer and run the feature generator program.

I could be wrong, but that's what I'm thinking right now.

Elroy

[LS1_TA]

i think they will keep the best of both worlds and move foreward with the other technologies. I agree OPENSKY=WTF ?

[fireandems13669]

Lets hope this is a good move.I have to ask why have they been bought and sold so many times? Is the company really worth buying with all the headache.

[jim202]

Harris and low cost have never co existed in the same dictionary. This may cause a move that
will help clean up a number of radio systems that have had lingering operational issues.

I don't think you will ever see any "low cost"equipment come out of the sale. It may produce
some much needed shoulder rubbing and pushing on Motorola that has long been needed.

If any of the Tyco sales force survives the transition, they will spend weeks if not months learning
how to sell the Harris way. The engineering people in the land mobile group at Tyco will get
thinned way down if any are still there when the dust settles. If the field service people are
smart, they may survive if they can prove they have the talent and customer relations that
Harris will demand.

The days of the MA-COM way of doing things will be short lived. Watch out Motorola.

I have always tried to walk the thin line of being neutral on this subject. Now let us sit back
and see how much of my predictions come true. Knowing Harris, it won't take long after the
sale is final to start seeing changes. There are some real smart people working at Tyco. If
they play their cards right they too will survive. Time will show us what will take place.

EF Johnson has been quietly culling their work force to become mean and lean. All the top
dogs are being thinned out and replaced with new lower cost talent that meets deadlines. It
will take time to see if their plan is working or the Federal Government steps in for age
discrimination. Time will show the rest of the radio industry how well these moves have worked.

Jim

Originally Posted by N_Jay

Harris >> Low cost? Are we talking about the same company?

[MPSCS]

DISPATCH Magazine On-Line - M/A-COMM Radio Division Sold Off

[kevins669]

I guess Lindsay is going to have to add "/ Harris" to this forum name!

-- Kevin

[studgeman]

Man I though for sure Fisher Price was going to buy them!

[HarrisRF]

Now I have to change my user name. I'm actually excited to do so!

[EnidPuceflange]

It's funny to read that the first thing Harris will do is to ditch ProVoice and OpenSky - given that that must be a fervent wish of a lot of the folks that would wish to scan these systems.

Why would they though? Harris is in the process of buying Tyco in order to give themselves a public safety product base. They didn't buy it in order to close down a competitor - they don't have competing products. So unless those things don't bring in money I wouldn't expect them to be shut down any time soon.

It's unlikely that there would be ANY changes, at least in the next year or so, as they decide where they can combine operations - as a for-instance, Harris doesn't HAVE the sales force that knows anything about police/fire/public safety/utility systems (that was why they bought them, after all). Same for manufacturing, engineering and so on.

[ElroyJetson]

Harris already has full-featured P25 digital radios for military and government customers in their own product line. What Harris gets out of this deal that is most important is a respectable customer base
and lucrative service agreements.

Look for the future of Harris (Formerly Tyco/M/A-Com) to be sharply focused on P25 offerings, with
ProVoice, ESK, and EDACS getting phased out as quickly as they can persuade their customer base
that P25 is the way to go.

I think the P5300 and M5300 radios will vanish quickly, as they are reportedly extremely unreliable,
but for the time being the 7100/7200 platforms will stay in the product lineup, though they may get
some redesign work to correct some design issues that really do need to be attended to. Like that
ridiculous five second power-up wait if your P7100 radio has certain firmware in it. Always flaky low battery indicators. Short battery life. Poor speaker audio quality. Questionable weatherproofing.
PTT rubber buttons that turn into useless goo after barely a year in service...or less.


Harris could do a lot to improve the existing M/A-Com offerings, or at least the models that are worth it to fix.

When it comes to RF engineering and digital design, Harris WINS. Motorola just made a big mistake
by not buying M/A-Com before Harris did. I predict Harris will prove to be an intense competitor,
but one that will drive hard for true interoperability and full compliance with the official P25 technical
standards, without pursuing any proprietary extensions to the standard.


Elroy

[EnidPuceflange]

Are you sure that Harris has P25 trunked offerings at all? They do have conventional, but as far as I'm aware, all they have is P25 trunked capable radios - which as we all know is not the same at all

Moto could never have bought M/A Com - anti-trust regulators would have been all over that one, and rightly so. In fact, Moto hasn't got the money - it's all keeping the cellular handset division afloat right now. Look for Moto's private radio division to be sold off (my guess would be to General Dynamics) within the next year or so.

What Harris have actually bought (or are in the process of doing) is a one-stop-shop for public safety P25 systems. Backhaul, consoles, terminals, installation, service - all there. Oh, and don't forget that the EDACS market is a cash cow - there's nowhere that those customers can go for replacement equipment EXCEPT GE/Ericsson/M/A Com/Tyco/Harris, until they upgrade them to P25 - so why would they do that?

There's no difference between EDACS and Moto's 3600 baud system in this regard - the only reason to change is obsolescence and an unwillingness to spend engineering time supporting it.

[Tobio63]

Harris' purchase of M/A-Com gives them a network to push and sell their Unity radios. Harris has already sold those radios to several federal agencies.

Is it possible that Harris will improve upon the VIDA IP network that M/A-Com boast? Harris has done ITAC networks for the military that include IP.

I think Harris bought M/A-Com for the network in public safety. It will probably improve it with Harris' expertise.

This could also be in response to Raytheon and EADS teaming in the public safety market as well, it was announce at the IWCE in Vegas this year.

[ElroyJetson]

Harris will pull the plug on the "proprietary" system variants, for the most part. They want slices of larger
open standard markets, not smaller proprietary ones. They'll continue to support existing ESK and
OpenSky systems and ProVoice in existing systems, but I don't expect them to be peddling those options
to new customers. I fully expect them to push P25 very hard.


Harris doesn't have a history of being very tolerant of money losing propositions. So I'm sure, at
the very least, that the last OpenSky system has been installed. There won't be another one.


Elroy

[EnidPuceflange]

Originally Posted by ElroyJetson

Harris will pull the plug on the "proprietary" system variants, for the most part. They want slices of larger
open standard markets, not smaller proprietary ones. They'll continue to support existing ESK and
OpenSky systems and ProVoice in existing systems, but I don't expect them to be peddling those options
to new customers. I fully expect them to push P25 very hard.

I'd agree that the main thrust is likely to be P25 - I don't think Tyco has sold a new EDACS system for several years now - but my point was that no company will ditch stuff that makes money, and EDACS does that. The actual costs for continuing to support EDACS are small, and the benefits are large. New developments, probably not, but support - certainly.

Originally Posted by ElroyJetson

Harris doesn't have a history of being very tolerant of money losing propositions. So I'm sure, at
the very least, that the last OpenSky system has been installed. There won't be another one.

What makes you think that Tyco is losing money on OpenSky? And by the way, it's still the only trunked system that has 6.25kHz equivalence, which is getting to be very important in bids these days. P25 phase 2 will provide that in the end, but it's at least 3 years from any real products from anyone.

Bottom line - there will be NO changes anyone here will see for at least a year, and after that, probably none of any real importance. This is a new market for Harris.

Enid.