MASterMind gets summer upgrades

BRADENTON, Fla.--An upgrade to one of the most widely used central station software platforms, GE Security’s MASterMind, will be released this summer allowing central stations to integrate remotely managed access control services and intrusion alarm capabilities into their offerings. The upgrades will integrate the MASterMind software with GE’s Alliance hardware and functionality. For existing MASterMind Monitoring (v6.22 or higher) clients who deploy Alliance TCP/IP ready hardware, the integration will offer two-way communication through the newly released software modules, MASintrusion and MASaccess. GE wrapped up beta testing of the modules in May. “MAS will become the database and provider of all initiating commands to the Alliance panel and it will also store all the information about the panel within the MAS system,” said Matt Schaberg, marketing leader, intrusion products at GE Security. The integration of access control into the MAS platform will also provide the benefit of remote management. “Unless there’s an actual physical hardware failure, they’ll never have to send anyone to the customer site to do software management, they can do it all from the central station,” said Schaberg. “They can run remote diagnostics and know where the problem exists before sending a technician and they’ll also be able to confirm that the repair was done properly and completely before the technician leaves the site by running remote diagnostics again.” The release of these two modules completes GE’s efforts to provide a complete commercial solution for its customers. The access control and intrusion modules will also integrate with the MAS video module, bringing all three into one integrated software platform. “Integrating these modules into an existing platform that operators already know limits the training time,” said Rick Denos, engineering manager of monitoring for GE Security. “We make it easy to share a database for the systems [central stations] currently manage and it gives them the ability to add this RMR access control and intrusion management component to their [offerings].” Similarly, in March, Honeywell and Bold Technology announced a collaborative effort to integrate Honeywell’s Win-Pak Pro Central Station, a remotely managed access control system, with Bold’s Manitou central station software (search “Honeywell, Bold collaboration” at www.securitysystemsews.com). This ability of central stations to control multiple services from one software platform can be a major benefit for end users and a good selling point for dealers as well. “We allow an end user to have one card that gets them through the front door and at the same time they are able to disarm the alarm system without having to walk over to a key pad,” said Schaberg. GE Security is primarily targeting existing MAS customers with a focus in commercial verticals including financial, retail and educational markets.