No More Pelco Bucks?

We all wondered how long the Pelco Jet would keep flying.  To many it was the symbol of inefficiency pegging Pelco as an old fashioned company out of touch with its environment.  For years the Pelco jet served a purpose, though.  It would wisk away Pelco executives, customers and partners to a higher level, helping to solidify sometimes tenuous relationships and removing competitors from the conversation.  Pelco really knew how to schmooze its constituents.

Pelco bucks and other perks for the Pelco family bred loyalty, to be sure, but they cost a lot of money.  SecurityDreamer has heard that they are gone now, along with the days of high flying customer courtships. 

Watch for news of high flying executives at TAC and Pelco, too. 

Pelco is being run like a business now.

Comments

[Michael A. Silva]

The Pelco jet is gone? Say it isn't so...

Pelco users have incredible loyalty to the brand despite the fact that the Pelco product, while always OK, has never been a superior offering from a technical standpoint. However, their after-the-sale service is in class by itself, making them the "Nordstroms" of the security industry. Many of my clients won't consider using anything but Pelco based on the service factor alone.

The jet was a nice marketing tool and may have even paid for itself. Many clients who were making CCTV system purchasing decisions were whisked away on the jet to Clovis and give a grand tour of the factory. This is a pretty impressive thing for most buyers (typically security directors or facilities managers) who may have never flown on a private jet before.

Let's hope that the cost cutting doesn't destroy the legendary Pelco service. Otherwise, all TAC will end up with is just another mediocre CCTV manufacturing company.

[paul grefenstette]

the spectra line isn't a superior product? i'd agree with you Mike on the dvrs and most of the fixed analog cameras and they have a long way to go with ip/megapixel - but for ptz's its hard to beat spectras for reliability and performance

[Michael A. Silva]

Paul,

OK, maybe I was a little too harsh on Pelco, they do make a few superior products, including the Spectradome. Their matrix switches are pretty good too.

However, when it comes to their computer-based and IP based products, they are seldom state-of-the art and, in my opinion, overpriced.

Of even bigger concern is Pelco's reluctance to work with the products of other manufacturer's or things such as industry-standard SANs or backup systems. If your requirements take you outside of what can be done with an all-Pelco solution, you are in trouble. In my mind, this is a 1980's mentality.....

[paul grefenstette]

right on the mark Michael, When my clients and prospects are asking about ip and megapixel pelco isnt on the map -- for them or me...it does look like pelco is launching a new ip product line in 2009 but ive already moved on to mobotix, arecont, avigilon...

[Ringo]

Pelco is SO far behind on the technology side. They will likely try to acquire their way out of it. Their access control offering is laughable at best, and their IP cameras are 2-3 years behind the average competition. Their DVR's have horrendous quality problems - as any of their integrators. You'd think they'd figure out how to handle this by now, but they haven't.

The layoffs there unfortunately are just starting, and the economy will not help them one bit.

[Jack Black]

I flew Pelco Air several times and it will be missed. Pelco as we all will agree are the leaders in customer service and have nice products, but I do agree they are WAY behind the times in advancing technology. You would think that they would be the leaders in R&D in their space!

[Joe Olmstead]

Just a few words from Pelco. Yes we are selling the jet, we have let go of 19 employees with severance pay (19 is less than 1% of all employees), we will be modifying some of our trade show activity along with a few other changes but at the same time we are seeking new engineers at several locations. Pelco will work it's way professionally through the economic turmoil and be a stronger company than ever. We are ready to ship products globally from our well maintained inventory and continue to provide "fantastic" customer support as usual.