This is the “oops” of the month (actually for the month of July).
On Monday, July 26 the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development made an important announcement:
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe and Integrated Biometric Technology, LLC (IBT) officials announced today that the company will establish new operations and locate its corporate headquarters in Franklin.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Nashville area, Franklin is a suburb of Nashville. Coincidentally, IDEMIA (IBT President & CEO Charles Carroll’s former employer) used to have an office in Franklin (I visited it in June 2019), but it has since moved to another Nashville suburb.
This job-related news obviously pleased a number of other Tennessee government officials, including one whom (in this post at least) will remain nameless. The government official tweeted the following, along with a link to the announcement:
Congratulations to @IntegratedBiome on their decision to locate their facility in Franklin and to all our state and local officials who helped bring these jobs home!
A nice sentiment to be sure…except for one teeny problem.
The government official didn’t tag Integrated Biometric Technology (who appears to have a Twitter account, but it isn’t live yet), but instead tagged a SOUTH CAROLINA company with a similar name, Integrated Biometrics. (I’ve discussed this company before. They’re the ones who really like 1970s TV crime fighters.)
Integrated Biometrics’ social media person set the record straight.
Hi there! That article is actually about Integrated Biometric Technology – not us (Integrated Biometrics)
It turns out that the two companies with similar names have existed in one form or another for nearly two decades. The first iteration of Integrated Biometric Technology was established in 2005, while Integrated Biometrics dates back to 2002. I was in Motorola at the time and can’t remember any name confusion in those days, since I was busy concentrating on other things…such as AFIX Tracker.
Cue the “It’s a Small World” music. Trust me, the biometrics world can be very small at times…
