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Public Safety Firm Versaterm Buys ICS, Expanding ‘Ecosystem’

The Canada-based gov tech supplier has acquired a company that sells CAD, RMS and other tools for first responders and public safety agencies. Versaterm’s CEO explains the thinking behind his company’s latest deal.

Three police officers walking down a sidewalk.
Public safety technology supplier Versaterm has bought Texas-based Integrated Computer Systems (ICS), which sells the Athena product line for computer-aided dispatch (CAD), records management (RMS) and associated tasks.

Terms were not disclosed.

The deal, announced Thursday, is the ninth acquisition for the Canada-based firm as it focuses on building what it calls a “versatile public safety ecosystem by providing technology for agencies of all sizes.”

ICS launched in 1975 and began selling public safety software to governments in Texas in 1999. The company’s Athena Public Safety Suite “complements” Versaterm’s enterprise-level CAD and RMS systems, the latter said in its news release.

The new acquisition gives Versaterm wider market coverage, Warren Loomis, president and CEO at Versaterm, told Government Technology via email.

“We now cover all market segments for CAD/RMS where our ecosystem of solutions (body-cam software, community engagement, etc.) is poised to solve problems throughout the market,” he said. “This is very different from prior acquisitions where they dovetailed into an ecosystem based on the Versaterm CAD/RMS market segment. We now have an ecosystem targeted for the ICS (Athena) market segment.”

Versaterm began business in 1977. It has lately been on an acquisition streak.

Just more than a year ago, for instance, the company bought CI Technologies, which focused on such areas as internal affairs and officer wellness.

In a previous interview with GT, Loomis said the company judges potential acquisitions by how well their products and services can fit like puzzle pieces into the Versaterm lineup.

Via email, he dismissed the prospect that Versaterm was going too quickly with acquisitions.

“The success [of those acquisitions] is measured by the adoption rate of our existing and relatively new customers,” he said. “The ecosystem is working and will continue to work as we look for more problems to solve.”
Thad Rueter writes about the business of government technology. He covered local and state governments for newspapers in the Chicago area and Florida, as well as e-commerce, digital payments and related topics for various publications. He lives in Wisconsin.