iControl/Time Warner Cable sell home security/home automation together

PALO ALTO, Calif.—Software provider iControl Networks this week announced a new partnership with Time Warner Cable, in which Time Warner's IntelligentHome security and home automation solution is being powered by iControl software.
Time Warner's solution offers such features as lighting and temperature control and home security—monitored 24/7 by a 5-Diamond rated monitoring center that Time Warner owns, according to a new release.
Security Systems News recently reported that Time Warner was selling its solution in upstate New York, Southern California and North Carolina.
For iControl, which is based here, the partnership is among a growing number of broadband partnerships the company has forged with telecoms in the home automation/home security space, according to Bob Hagerty, iControl's new CEO.
“We have a number of partners on a national basis,” Hagerty told SSN. “We've built a software platform that's really flexible, a really groundbreaking solution, and with it we can add a number of things to it, but the most talked about is the home security/home management side of it.”
Why is iControl partnering with telecoms to offer its solution?
“We've got a real feeling that they are now very, very focused on this space,” Hagerty said. “They talk about it as being the fourth major solution that they're going to offer. They offer, obviously, entertainment [and] television, they have broadband, they have voice and now this home management solution.”
This past summer, iControl announced a partnership with Comcast to have its software power Comcast's Xfinity Home Security solution.
The company also is partnering with Rogers Communications in Canada to power its Smart Home Monitoring service, Hagerty said.
The Time Warner Cable announcement on Jan. 9 marked iControl's latest telecom/cable partnership. But iControl also partners with traditional home security companies. Hagerty said, “There is a strong market for just pure security in North America and obviously that's why we're extraordinarily interested in our security partners.”
The company announced a partnership with a traditional home security company, ADT, two years ago. Its software powers ADT's PULSE product.
In April 2011, iControl also announced a partnership with C24 Interactive, a brand within Connect24, under the Tyco Security Products brand portfolio, to power “an integrated solution that will enable the DSC dealer and central station monitoring partners to offer customers interactive home security and management features.”
Hagerty said the home security/home automation market can be approached in two ways. “Some people are riding the broadband in to offer this complete solution, and others are riding the security application and broadening it to this broadband application,” he said. “But the end result is there's a lot of folks targeting this marketplace.”
Will iControl announce more partnerships in 2012?
“Without a doubt,” Hagerty told SSN. “There's more in the pipeline. I can't talk about them yet but … you're going to hear a lot about iControl in the coming year.”
Hagerty has been with iControl just a few months. The company last fall announced his appointment as CEO, saying he would “focus on product execution with iControl's existing customer and partner networks, as well as growing the company through new market and partnership opportunities.”
Hagerty, who has more than 35 years of experience in the technology industry, was most recently CEO of Polycom, which specializes in video and voice conferencing, and Web and data solutions. He replaced co-CEOs Jim Johnson and Paul Dawes, both of whom moved to other leadership positions at iControl, the company said at the time.