GE Security has Deep Problems - Community Consensus

As the comments in our GE Security report make clear, GE Security has underperformed, has uncompetitive products and is not well respected by the community of specifiers, dealers and consultants. Here are a few choice comments:

• "I can't think of a single company that was made better after acquisition by GE, and many that were made considerably worse."
• "Their cameras are nothing special and their DVRs look worse than Dedicated Micros' offerings from two years ago without the latter's ease of use."
• "For a while they seemed to buy anyone that would sell, and in many cases their purchases were redundant or devoid of real strategic value."
• "They have had good opportunity to develop innovative, integrated solutions, but instead appeared to completely lose focus on their goals."
• "GE's products just seem like old technology to me"
• "How well the products they produce serve the security community, and in that regard I think GE are probably the worst of the Big Corporates."
• "A big fat company that doesn't do anywhere near so well as many of the leaner, meaner companies that just make simple products at sensible prices.
• "Video security is only worth the new customer relations that it will bring a possible buyer the rest is purely run into the ground and populated by worn out people trying to hold together a system that has been struggling for a long time with very unexecutable burdens."

None of this is surprising since it mirrors what GE Security's former employees tell me consistently.

As much as the financial community attempts to spin this as bullish sign, it's clear GE Security has deep problems. Maybe a acquirer makes a mistake and buys it with the dream of instantly becoming a top-tier security competitor. If this does, it certainly will not be from Tyco, UTC or Schneider who certainly know the space well and the problems of GE Security.

[Update: UTC acquired GE Security.]