Taser is more than stun guns
Taser International is best known for its stun guns, which account for most of the company’s sales. But the 20 year-old company is doing what many Millennials do: branching out to video and the cloud, which has investors excited.
“The stock has had a tremendous run in 2013,” says technology analyst Glenn Mattson of Sidoti & Company.
Taser’s stock price basically doubled, partly due to “excitement about the on-officer video,” Mattson says. On-officer video are cameras that cops wear on their bodies or uniform to record interactions with civilians.
Taser’s vice president of communications Steve Tuttle says more than 800 agencies are now using the new body cameras and a prior version with a flexible mount because so many bystanders are already filming officers on their phones.
“Can you imagine walking down the street and seeing an officer use a baton?” says Tuttle. “That’s pretty dramatic. So that can be uploaded to YouTube before the officer even gets his handcuffs on that guy.” Police departments want their own evidence of what happened.
Taser also wants to sell them a virtual evidence room, in the cloud, to store and tag that video — called evidence.com, subscriptions start at $9.95 a month.
Which also makes the stun-gun company an IT firm.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
