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For more than a century, the famous Flatiron Building here has occupied a piece of curiously shaped real estate at 175 Fifth Avenue, sitting on a small triangular island at 23rd Street and Broadway, facing Madison Square.

As technology constantly evolves and security systems continue to grow, one can never underestimate the importance of support and service. Companies need to offer, invest and upgrade end-to-end support services to keep the pace with ever changing technology in the security space without having any negative impact on the quality of services they provide.

Idesco Corp. started in the security business in the early 1940s. They began with ID badging for the Department of the Army. Well, times have changed, a lot, in the past seven or eight decades but one constant is that Idesco is still involved in security. In fact, company president Andrew Schonzeit says Idesco’s biggest asset, as an integrator, is that they "stay one step ahead." 

I personally have been in the security business for over 25 years. Now more than ever, clients are looking for assistance defining what solution will meet or exceed their needs. Whether those needs are well defined at the present moment or not, clients are looking for a solution provider to help fine tune their requests in line with today's level of technology and their needs while making the intended solution blend into their interior or exterior building aesthetics.

The changes in the systems integration industry over the last several years have been mind-boggling. But any consternation over what’s happening can, with a little imagination, be turned into new avenues of recurring monthly revenue (RMR).

It is not just the traditional systems integration industry that has been affected. Every low voltage discipline — from contractors who play in the residential sound space, to IT providers who focus on network controls and infrastructure — is facing dwindling hardware profit margins.

Idesco Corp. has opened a new showroom in New York City to provide customers with live demos of its key security products. The integrator offers a wide array of security solutions, including ID card printers, video surveillance cameras, access control systems and software.

NEW YORK, NY Few companies with- stand the test of time like Idesco Corp. The New York Real Estate Journal sat down with its princi- pal, Andrew Schonzeit, to discuss how.
NYREJ: Andy, after 66 years Idesco continues to flourish, can you explain how?
AS: Idesco prides itself on adapta- tion. We identify what we believe are going to be future industry trends, spend a considerable amount of time and money in learning about them and then if we feel that they warrant it, we invest in them. We are conservative in our approach and rather than dive right in we take our time to make sure that our decisions are sound.

As technology constantly evolves, IP access control is quickly moving forward with both new installations and retrofitting existing legacy ac- cess control systems. The control panel concept is quickly being replaced for access control just as the DVR is being replaced with IP video.

When the Egged bus company, the national bus company of Israel, wanted to develop a badge that would allow company officials, employees, and their families to ride some bus routes free of charge, they also wanted to ensure that the badges would not be misused or duplicated by others.

There’s a famous old saying: “You can be safe a hundred times, but you only die once.” A group of miners enter a mine every work day for years, uneventfully. Suddenly one day, shortly after they enter there is an explosion and  many of them are killed or injured. An owner/pilot of a small plane is interviewed on the radio and explains how safe flying is. Three days later he flies into a building and is killed. A skyscraper is filled with security devices of   all kinds and is guarded on all sides. A huge airliner deliberately crashes into it, destroying the building and killing almost everyone inside the building.

It was time for the renewal of my library membership. So I entered the administrative office area where I promptly filled out a new application form. Then an instant photo camera captured my image. It was developed immediately, placed on a preprinted card with the organization’s preprinted logo. Then a clerk typed in my name on the card and had the card laminated. It was then handed to me. The clerk told me I was ready for another year at the library.

In the normal course of our lives, we generally wake up in the morning, knowing the sun will come up as it always does-to the point that we really do not think of it. We go to our jobs, do work around the house, and send the kids off to school. We could remember a particular year in our lives, perhaps by an unusually big storm-say a hurricane or tornado. Or there may have been a prolonged drought or a particularly large snow storm. These are things that are bound to happen as the seasons change. Spring is followed by summer, then autumn, then winter.