All fired up: Crow Electronics moves into fire product market for first time

FORT LEE, N.J.--On the heels of deciding to separate its operations from surveillance partner Video Domain, security product manufacturer Crow Electronics launched its fire product line in March and officially debuted it at ISC West last month. Crow Electronics joined the fire product market to be able to cover a variety of sectors--allowing for the company to offer more product availability to its customers. The company will begin its offerings with two-wire, four-wire and wireless smoke detectors. "Basically, we are a full line manufacturer of security products and what we've decided to do is go less on the video and make the move into fire," said Therry Brunache, sales manager at Crow Electronics. "We felt that that market was necessary for us to dabble in." Although the company has added the new product line, Brunache said he was unsure how large a part the fire product line would become in the business. "For now, we are going to produce it and see where it takes us," Brunache said. Brunache said the decision to begin offering these products stemmed from customer demand. "Our European and Latin American customer base asked us for fire and we decided to streamline the launch with North America at the same time," he said. Crow's move to enter the fire side of the manufacturing industry is one of the changes to the ever-evolving market, which experienced a host of moves recently as GE finalized its purchase of fire detection system manufacturer Edwards Systems Technology in March, and United Technologies Corp. grabbed hold of Kidde in the beginning of 2005. Crow is just one new player to enter the sector this year--Global Fire Controls launched at the beginning of the year to provide a variety of fire products to the industry. Brunache said the decision to distance itself from Israeli-based Video Domain was a move that allows both counterparts to focus on core competencies, even though Crow will continue to offer the product line. "Our video partner decided to go its separate way," he said. "It allows them to concentrate more on video since when we were together it limited them to video since we focus more on the burglar side of things."