Taser is giving body cameras to any cops who want them

(April 6): Taser International Inc. has become by far the leading US supplier of police body cameras, which departments have rushed to adopt in the years since the shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere led to public demands for greater accountability. Interest in the cameras, and the management of their footage, has pushed the world’s best-known maker of stun guns toward cloud computing and digital devices, sold under the Axon brand. Now that business is becoming the face of the US$1.2 billion company.

The whole place will be called Axon, and as of April 6 the TASR ticker on the Nasdaq exchange is AAXN. “The Taser brand is a product brand,” says Chief Executive Officer Rick Smith. “People don’t think of cloud software or sensor devices and the many things we now do.” He’s trying to solidify Axon’s position and deepen ties to local departments with a splashy offer: a year of free cameras for any US police agency.

Body cameras, and software to manage the footage, marked Taser’s first successful initiative to expand beyond the occasionally dangerous stun guns after years of failure. In 2011 almost all its revenue came from Tasers, but last year Axon made up a quarter of sales. Axon says it’s won contracts with 36 of the 41 major city departments that have bought body cameras.

---

Related Stories

• SoftBank lines up Apple, Nvidia as strategic Arm IPO backers
• ASML hit with new limits on chip gear exports to China
• Generative AI is a bubble whose time has come

---