A conversation with BluB0X

In the course of putting together the educational program for our new Cloud+ conference, I've been talking cloud almost every day and last week I met a new cloud provider called BluB0X.

The company is new, but the folks behind BluB0X have been doing cloud for a long time--the executives and some of the team are the people who founded TouchCom. Remember Touchcom? It was acquired by G4S in 2008. Here's a story about that deal.

I had a great conversation with BluB0X CEO Patrick Barry and COO Patrick de Cavaignac of BluB0X yesterday.

Barry told me the principals of BluB0X "took everything we learned in the 15 years building the previous [Touchcom] product and applied modern requirements and modern technology."  A significant difference is that Touchcom sold direct to end users whereas BluB0X is working with the channel. Another difference is that BluB0X focuses soley on security. "There is no facility management [component], BluB0X focuses on access control, alarm management, video, biometrics and visitor management," Barry said.

De Cavaignac added that BluB0X also does elevator systems integrating into the destination control systems.

Barry said security has gone through three technology cycles--we're now now at the fourth technology cycle, he said

This fourth cycle, what BluB0X calls "Security 4.0," is the foundation of BluB0X's manufacturing philosophy. Barry said Security 4.0 comprises six technologies that are changing the security industry and which BluB0X is built around. They are: cloud/wireless; mobile devices; multi-factor biometrics; everything unified on a Mercury platform (the largest installed platform, Barry noted); open, standard, IP-based; and lots of analytics.

BluB0X is ramping up quickly, Barry said. It has several new customers. The company exhibited at ISC West and will be at ASIS in September. The company recently hired Siemens' veteran Perry Levine to do business development.

Want to demo the product? Barry said it's very easy to do. Because it's in the cloud, BluB0X provides a login and password "and they can use the demo site. ... They can try it before they buy it," Barry said.

It offers the standard cloud benefits of "one version, the current version that gets upgraded once a month, whereas the typical manufacturer upgrades once a year," Barry said.

Barry is also very excited about the product's ability to run on any mobile device. It's different, he said, because "it's readable whatever the dimension of the screen is ... you can run our software from a computer or when you're walking down the street with your smartphone." Many software programs work on mobile devices via apps, he said. That can be problematic because the interface looks different, there's a lot less power with the apps, and you have to keep updating the apps.

I will have more, later, in a story on BluB0X.