Today we signed an agreement to acquire Icontrol Networks Inc., an Austin, Texas-based company that creates technology and platforms for connected home security and the Internet of Things.

Icontrol has been an important technology partner for Comcast since the launch of Xfinity Home in 2010. The main business we are acquiring is Icontrol’s "Converge" software platform. That platform powers the Xfinity Home touch-screen panel and back-end servers, allowing them to communicate with and manage security sensors in the home, as well as supporting home-automation devices like cameras and thermostats.

Another company, Alarm.com, today announced that it would purchase the other elements of Icontrol’s business.

Icontrol has been innovating around the Internet of Things since it was founded in 2003, and built edge-based platforms and technologies that support connected home security for not just Xfinity Home, but for a number of leading MSOs. We look forward to continuing to serve customers using the Converge software platform and to growing Icontrol’s wholesale business by accelerating the development of new services and features.

As this business becomes part of Comcast, we will strategically invest in its technology and technologists, so that we can deliver new features, products and services to both individual Xfinity Home customers and enterprise-level Converge customers, faster than ever before.

The Icontrol employees in Austin who are joining Comcast will make up a new Comcast engineering center of excellence in Austin that can take advantage of the great energy and talent that city has to offer. That team will work closely with our engineers in Philadelphia and Silicon Valley to build simple, elegant and powerful connected-home and connected home security products for our customers.

We’re excited to welcome this impressive team of technologists into Comcast, and look forward to what comes next.