Insider News& Business Micro Key Celebrates 25th Anniversary
President and chief executive officer of Kissimmee, Fla.-based Micro Key Solutions, Wayne Torrens first became involved with the field of billing soft- ware development as a college stu- dent. Together with his best friend’s father, Atlee Mercer, who had recently sold his security dealership, Torrens founded Micro Key Software in 1985 in response to an interest in billing software development from people in the security industry. “We started with billing and service, back-office stuff,” said Torrens. Even- tually, customers started asking for an integrated management system, “They were saying, ‘Why don’t you guys write some central station software to integrate with billing so we don’t have to enter everyone’s names twice?’” The company continued to grow the scope of its offerings as well as its cus- tomer base and in 2009 became Micro Key Solutions, a new name to better reflect their core mission. The company now offers Windows-based automated monitoring and accounting solutions for central stations, dealers, and inte- grators following a modular model. Torrens related, “When we started
Torrens
way back when, we dealt with a rela- tively small alarm dealer — mom and pop types. One of my goals in growth of the central station market was to get to enterprise-level software. Providing high-end features way beyond what the little guy needs. We’ve achieved that and continue to push the envelope of features that nobody is doing. Our purpose is to be the best that we can be.” Micro Key has been celebrating this
anniversary all year. At the ISC West and ESX exhibitions, Micro Key hosted a trade show “happy hour” with free beer at its booth. “We’re celebrating our customers, not necessarily us. We have a lot of customers that have been with us for 20-plus years.”
Throughout its 25 years, Micro Key has set and attained milestones, which
22 November 2010
are what keeps the company growing, Torrens said. “We had a goal…to have 1,000 [active] clients by [year] 2000. It was a big company thing, everyone was focused on that and helped make it happen. But if you don’t create a goal, you never achieve it. We established that goal one or two years before that and set to work on achieving it.” One of the most recent
developments at the company has been the switch to a .NET Framework. “Internally, that
means we’re shifting a little bit more towards mainstream development,” said Torrens. “A lot of development these days is all in .NET. The tools we’ve used in the past were superior to Microsoft tools of their time. We’re following the path of the experts in the field. The other reason is that some of the Fortune 500 — even Fortune 1000 — companies only want to do business with companies who use and support Microsoft products.” Looking forward, Torrens said there are many more exciting developments coming in the way of software. “I see that a lot of software is just going to become a web service — as they say, ‘in the cloud.’ It doesn’t have to run in my office as long as there is a security level where only my people can get in.” He added that sweep- ing changes will benefit companies that constantly innovate and always keep an eye cast towards what’s next. Torrens believes that focus on innovation as well as excellent customer service are what set Micro Key Solutions apart.
“When we started we were complete- ly customer-focused,” Torrens said. “We listened to our customers’ needs and developed software based on their needs, and we continued to listen to cre- ate enhancements. That is still exactly what we do today.” Torrens added that feedback is a key developmental tool for the company and that Micro Key continually works to listen to and act on behalf of its customers. — By Sabrina Gasulla, Associate Editor
News Briefs Fajardo Irons
Speco Technologies announced Edu- ardo Fajardo has joined the company as software engineer. He brings with him extensive lead- ership and software development expe- rience in finance, digital asset man- agement and the video surveillance industry. Speco also named Nicho- las Irons and Zin Thu as new prod- uct engineers. Irons has an extensive history and success with
aerospace Thu
engine product lines and manu- facturing. Thu has experience with the design and imple- mentation of digital hardware systems for embedded proj- ects. She also has
experience in project management and interfacing as engineering lead with a production team.
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Coleman Cable Inc., Waukegan, Ill., announced Howard Strauss joined the company as vice president, Wire & Cable Distribu- tion. He is leading the company’s efforts in the Wire & Cable and the Security Home Tech- nology business units. Strauss will be responsible for all facets of these busi- nesses to drive growth though new prod- ucts, increase market share and aid in achieving corporate objectives. He has more than 25 years of industrial and low-voltage product experience.
Strauss
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