Security is top of a lot of people's minds these days, and for Securus Technologies and NCIC Inmate Phone (News - Alert) Service, perhaps even more so. These two firms, already well-known for contributions in security matters ranging from investigation tools to information technology services, to inmate communications services, have recently decided to pool efforts in a bid to bring out some powerful new technology via a strategic patent licensing agreement.

The two sides of the agreement describe the advantages of it in fairly similar terms. NCIC president Bill Pope noted that, under the terms of the agreement, NCIC would get access to the Securus patent portfolio, described as “...the largest patent portfolio in our industry by far.” This in turn would save NCIC “...millions of dollars in incremental labor costs” and allow the company to further realize time savings in using its own software development team to work with Securus patents in internal development.

Meanwhile, Securus—as described by its president and CEO Richard A. “Rick” Smith—would land significant benefit of its own. Smith describes how NCIC is a “...good long-term partner” in an ongoing effort to provide security-related products for correctional facilities and law enforcement efforts. Given that Securus already turns to NCIC's “Mexico Collect” service, and even on occasion refers smaller facilities interested in working with Securus to NCIC, there was already quite a bit of blending going on between the two firms, which further makes plans to work together make quite a bit more sense overall.

It's seldom a bad idea for two firms in the same field, that aren't necessarily competitors, to work together, especially when each firm has something different to bring to the table. NCIC has what looks to be a development team eager to get cracking and turning out new products and services, while Securus has a laundry list of patents that it may not have been able to put the time and resources into putting to full use. Given that Securus already has a staff of over 100 software engineers, according to remarks from Smith, it may well be that Securus' shop is simply too stuffed with projects already to take full advantage of its patent portfolio, so turning over some of the leg work to NCIC might well have been a smart idea. The more products a company can have in the field, after all, means the more products the company can take advantage of and the better the likelihood that at least one of said products will be a hit with the company's clientele. With NCIC working from the same playbook, Securus can increase the chances of landing that next big hit.

Only time will tell just what exactly the combination of NCIC and Securus yields, but with a portfolio the size of Securus' being worked on by the eager and able bunch at NCIC, the possibilities are downright staggering.