To be sure, there is no love lost between communications giants Motorola and Ericsson Inc. For years, Motorola radio systems, produced by the company’s Communications Enterprise subsidiary, have dominated the public safety markets in Texas, while Ericsson’s products have been a favorite of the public service sector. However, in the past 10 years, Ericsson, from its regional headquarters in Richardson, outside of Dallas, has stepped up its courting of public safety entities, posing a larger threat to Motorola’s share of the market.
While Motorola’s radio systems still serve public safety agencies in many major Texas cities Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, and El Paso Ericsson is increasing its presence across the state. Adding to its major public service systems, such as Texas Utilities and the Lower Colorado River Authority, Ericsson has landed a $48 million contract to provide a radio system for both public safety and public service in San Antonio and all of Bexar County. When the San Antonio City Council voted in May to award Ericsson the contract, Ericsson was, in essence, taking over a Motorola town. “I’m a little concerned and confused about where we are today,” said Motorola vice president Mark Moon in the San Antonio Express-News. “We will respect your [City Council] decision, but I would ask ŒWhy rush?'”
Now, the two are neck-and-neck again, vying for the local contract, which, as currently designed, is worth at least $70 million the largest contract the city has been involved with for anything other than construction. And with the city of Houston gearing up to put out its RFP for a new radio system, it looks like competition between the two outfits will grow even more fierce.
That competition may explain the chilly relationship between the two companies.”They’re vicious, they hate each other,” says Don Brooks, a 32-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department, who has also managed that city’s radio system for the past 10 years. And during San Antonio’s recent quest to buy a new radio system, says Brooks, who sat on the city’s technical evaluation committee, the two companies were in rare form. “It was the most vicious I’ve seen them get,” he says. “It got down to personal attacks. Trying to discredit the [city’s] consultant, trying to discredit [evaluation] committee members. I’m lucky I got out of there with five hairs in my head.”
In Austin’s case, it was unclear at first whether Ericsson would even bid on the radio project. The company was wary of expending time, effort, and money on a bid in a town where Motorola’s semiconductor operations employ 10,000 people. “We are concerned with the politics, the political influences,” says Art Sanders, Ericsson’s district sales manager.
Motorola, for its part, consistently claims that Ericsson does not have large public safety systems in place in the U.S. like the one called for in the coalition’s RFP. “We’re demonstrating a system. We’re not just fantasizing about what we can give them,” says Pat Sturmon, Motorola’s corporate public relations manager. He stresses the coalition’s claim that they have gone out of their way to ensure a fair bidding process going so far as extending its timeline to give both companies ample time to submit proposals. And he adds that there was never any favoritism going on in the early 1980s between the city of Austin and Motorola. “That made a big splash in the press for a few days, then Motorola was exonerated.”
Ericsson takes issue with Motorola’s claim that Ericsson has little public safety experience with its radios. Ericsson has public safety and public service systems installed throughout the U.S. and the world, with a system similar to the one the local coalition is proposing in Manatee County, Florida, installed in 1987.
Brooks, the San Antonio police officer, calls the two companies’ sales tactics an exercise in “unselling” the competition. “They have the best propaganda machines in effect,” says Brooks. “It’s all rumors and rumors of rumors. They are like two boys out on the school yard fighting.”
When asked about the companies’ sales techniques, Danny Hobby, Austin’s assistant director of information systems and spokesman for the coalition, says only that he is glad to have the competition. “We look at Motorola and Ericsson as very professional people that we hope are going to give us good information to build a good system for the city of Austin,” he says. “So, like we tell anyone who asks us, we love Motorola and we love Ericsson.”
This article appears in December 10 • 1999.