TycoIS, ISC lawsuits settled

HAMILTON, N.J.—A lawsuit involving integration giant TycoIS and Integrated Security & Communications over alleged employee poaching and trade secrets stolen has been settled, Michael Thomas, ISC CEO told Security Systems News.

Thomas is unable to discuss details of the settlement offer, but said he's “happy that this is behind us, as it was a distraction for the business from doing what we are passionate about. Now we are able to continue with our growth and expansion of the business at an even faster pace.” 

The initial lawsuit was filed by TycoIS in May. In June, ISC filed a counterclaim. At the center of the lawsuit were three current ISC employees who were former employees of SST, Thomas Catagnus, John Pichola and Joel Richman. SST was the platform for ADT (Now TycoIS) to launch into the systems integration business.  

In a prepared statement, Thomas said: “Integrated Security & Communications (ISC) and plaintiff and counterclaim defendant Tyco Integrated Security (TycoIS), having fully resolved any disagreements, are pleased to announce the settlement of the matter. The court has dismissed all claims in the litigation (Civil Action No. 2:13-cv-3003-SD) at the request of the parties.”

TycoIS declined to comment on the settlement.

While the lawsuits were being settled, ISC—a $15 million independent integrator with close to 60 employees—was busy with two major projects: upgrading its IT infrastructure to the cloud and building a new Northest Hub here.

“We'll use it for the evaluation of technology, design engineering, staging and consulting, burn-in for software systems and the distribution of products and projects,” Thomas said. 

ISC has offices in Manhattan, Boston, Exton, Pa. and Raleigh, N.C. It has operations in Chicago, but no physical office yet.

Likely locations for new centers of excellence are:  “the Carolinas or Georgia, the Midwest, likely [in] Chicago, Southern California or Phoenix, and in Northern California, in the Bay Area,” Thomas said. ISC may also open a center of excellence in Texas.

“I'm not sure what the order will be; we'll open the offices as the business grows and our customers take us in different directions,” he added.

Opening the office here was simplified by the fact that ISC moved its IT infrastructure to the cloud before the holidays. 

It took three months of planning, but ISC's move to the cloud is a major cost savings for ISC and the ability to grow the business more efficiently, Joel Richman, ISC chief information officer, said.

Opening a new office, a process that would previously take “two to three months of planning and implementation [including likely two to three servers and a PBX] will now take a week,” he said.

“Today all you need is an Internet connection,” Richman said.

An added benefit, he said, is that ISC employees who use the cloud every day at work “now understand what the cloud can do with Brivo, business management, business intelligence, Axis' AVHS [for example]. It makes sense to you because you use [the cloud] in your day-to-day routine.”