Ex-Integral vets purchase Pelco Access, form infinias

INDIANAPOLIS--Just a few weeks after Pelco's announcement that it would be divesting itself of the Intelli-M Electronic Access Control product line, the executives in charge of the line have formed a new company, infinias, that will purchase and continue Intelli-M. With backing from venture firms Collina Ventures and Orchard Capital, former Pelco vice president of EAC engineering Wayne Jared will lead the new company as president and CEO, and he will be joined others of his team, based here.

Jared was director of engineering for Integral, which was owned by Schneider Electric and merged with Pelco when Schneider acquired Pelco in 2007. He said he and his team were made aware of the possibility that Pelco would spin off the Intelli-M line in December, "and, about mid-January, the decision was made to close the Indy office, for Pelco to get out of the access business, so at that point I ran some numbers and asked for a little time to see what I could scare up."

The deal is intended to close on March 16, at which point infinias will begin taking orders, with Pelco doing the fulfillment for 30 days before infinias takes over all operations.

Jared said the goal is to stay close and integrated with Pelco, and "to make sure that Pelco customers have a very smooth transition." Infinias will take over warranty and support work on installed products going forward. In fact, he said, infinias will work to expand and support integration with more of Pelco's DVR line.

The company will also unveil a new Intelli-M Access software, that is, said Jared, "the latest of the latest: .Net technology, browser based, all the cool stuff. The big difference, honestly, will be the scalability, something that can go way beyond what it will be asked to do."

This is something Pelco's R&D team has been working on for the past year, and, in the end, Jared said the Pelco merger was good for Intelli-M. "The team I had was five people," he said, "and the team I've had for the last year was 35 people. There was a significant investment in R&D and people. The plan was to invest heavily and go big with it, but Pelco just has to focus on the video business now."