NPIA funding, Airwave invests in Kelvin Connect, BlackBerry's 20k devices

22 September 2008 by Rod McLaren

Evolution of police communications (4 Sep 2008) is the most accurate recent story on the state of mobile data in UK policing as it relates to government funding, NPIA, Airwave etc. It has some useful numbers on ROI. I would have liked to seen a clearer explanation of the inter-relationship of device, telco vendor and application (perhaps that’s something we should have a go at).

Notably, NPIA clearly envisages a signification consolidation in mobile policing in future – of device, of bearer, of technical approach etc. And they’re serving notice of their aim to be a central best-practice/best-product clearing-house, potentially mandating policy. It’s a pitch that didn’t work in their previous guise as PITO, but may be achievable now if they’re able to control funding criteria and conditions more tightly. NPIA CIO Richard Earland:

“Suppliers are still selling 43 times into 43 forces, rather than engaging us in a more strategic debate. The work we are doing in terms of national consolidation will lead to fewer solutions, more consolidation, more cost-effectiveness and that will produce some challenges for suppliers as well.

“I accept there is a degree of diversity and that is right at this stage of development of the product in an operational context. Over time we will see consolidation because there is an expressed intent to consolidate and converge the police IT landscape to 2015.”

News is expected soon on the awards of the second tranche of £25m funding for a further 15,000 devices by 2010, which was announced in July 2008.

BlackBerry’s position in mobile data isn’t discussed at all in the article, probably because it looks built on interviews with NPIA (which tends to de-emphasise BlackBerry) and Airwave. However, RIM has recently PR-ed its own device numbers in UK policing: ‘approximately 20,000 devices’ at 28 police forces, and growing. RIM also notes that it is getting a slice of the NPIA funding action at forces like Thames Valley which has 1,100 BlackBerrys. It’s pretty impressive growth.

But one area where RIM isn’t getting any NPIA spend is from the Accelerator Programme, which is designed to fast-track police forces who aren’t yet doing much with mobile data. The winning suppliers to the programme are Cable & Wireless/Beat, and Airwave. Neither C&W nor Airwave have yet made significant announcements on which forces are undertaking Accelerator Programme projects, but Airwave have recently announced a £1m investment in Scottish mobile data software applications house, Kelvin Connect:

The investment builds on an existing relationship between the two companies – Kelvin Connect already partners solely with Airwave to deliver its system through the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) Accelerator Package. This offers Airwave police customers by far the most comprehensive and effective data-capture, processing and reporting solution.

Erm, I’m duty-bound to clarify here that the “Kelvin Connect already partners solely” refers to an exclusivity on Kelvin Connect’s side: if your police wants to use accelerator programme funding for their excellent software products, then you have to go to Airwave, whose offerings also include products built by three other software development partners, Siemens, Arrk, and us. Beat has the same exclusivity with C&W, and that both telcos are talking up their partnerships is indicative that there’s a lot of value in the applications themselves.

In law enforcement, the [Kelvin Connect] system enables police officers to make notes, complete statements and complete forms covering every one of their processes. This removes the burden of paper work for front line officers and streamlines or removes back-office processes, returning officers to front-line policing for at least an extra hour per shift.

That one-hour-saved-per-shift is becoming a common ROI mantra in mobile policing. Perhaps we’ll see vendors differentiate themselves with larger quantitative numbers in 2009, or an increasing focus on qualitative measures of success.

Related posts:

• NPIA’s mobile data accelerator programme (July 2008)
• 27 Police forces get £50m for 10,000 mobile devices (June 2008)

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Disclosure: Mobbu has two stakes in this, so we’re not unbiased. We develop software for Airwave. We also develop and sell our own software products for police services in the UK, mostly on the BlackBerry platform.

1. It seems the C&W accelerator package does include BlackBerry devices on top of PDAs and TETRA device offerings.

   As far as I know, Airwave have one police customer at present, using PDAs only.

   
   — Christopher    16 October 2008, 11:53    #

NPIA's mobile data accelerator programme Application updates not recognised on new BlackBerry devices?