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Icom America to split LMR business

Mar 7, 2008 2:31 PM, By Glenn Bischoff

Icom America will split its land mobile radio business into separate units that will focus on the business and industrial, or B&I, and government sectors, respectively, said Chris Lougee, Icom vice president, during an interview last week at IWCE 2008 in Las Vegas.

According to Lougee, the company wants its sales personnel to be specialists. “Today you have to be a consultative salesperson because customers are looking for total systems,” Lougee said, adding that “there’s only so much that people can hold in their heads.”

Another reason for the move stems from the company’s assessment that B&I sector growth likely will slow somewhat due to recession fears; in contrast, no such fears exist concerning the government sector, Lougee said.

“The government market is really large and our share is really small, so there is a good business opportunity there,” he said.

As evidence, he pointed to the $1 billion in interoperability grant money distributed to the states by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration last September. “There will be more money coming because there’s so much left to do,” he said.

In other news, Icom showcased at IWCE a new line of Project 25 trunking products that included mobiles, portables and repeaters. Each device delivers trunked voice calls, including announcement group calls and broadcast calls, and trunked public switched telephone network (PSTN) calls, including unit to PSTN and PSTN to unit, according to the company.