14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia announced today a partnership with Securitas for the enhancement of mobile services for personal security and safety on the S60 platform. The new service bundle, Securitas Safe-2-Go, includes four components: Assist (security alert), Find (locate person), Zone (SMS boundary alerts) and Friends (general friend locator). The two announced that Safe-2-Go would be launched in Sweden by mid 2009, while other European countries would benefit from it later on this year.
Assist is a service that can connect the user to the Securitas alarm central, providing the company with a means to see who is calling and from where and also know who should be contacted, and it can be compared with a panic alarm. Find allows users to get the location of another person. Through Zone, a user gets alerted when another person enters a specific area, and it is similar to the one used by child-tracking services. Friends is meant to give users an overview of the location of a group of people.
“By combining the main competencies of both companies within security and mobility, Securitas and Nokia expect to be able to offer attractive and affordable security services in mobile devices. GPS enabled mobile devices are soon to be as common as the camera making this a mass market service.”
The services that comprise Safe-2-Go are not marketed as being groundbreaking. Other examples would be start-ups working on friend-finder mobile services or child-tracking, which are already available. The companies expect the services to be adopted on a larger scale in both the corporate and consumer environment.
Nokia is able to push mobile-related services to its users. At the same time, Securitas is a worldwide provider of security services and offers a widely known 'security' brand. Many of the company's customers are already using standalone hardware to provide similar security solutions. The launch of these services at this scale proves that mobile phones are absorbing security alarms. At the same time, they can provide a converged mobile – security service solution that is cheaper than the standalone equivalents.
”Services regarding personal security have so far mainly been used by people with an increased risk profile and have required separate devices with GPS and alarm button. Securitas will now be offering services, which will work in all GPS enabled phones based on the S60 platform. This way it will [be] possible to reach a large customer base of mobile users who can increase the personal security and create safety in everyday life in an easy and affordable way.”