EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Notification system software enables preplanned responses to events

摘要

Catastrophes like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina were the impetus for a new solutions category that goes by varying names, including emergency notification systems and business continuity software. Dialogics, Red Alert, Send Word Now, and NotiFind are vendors in this growing space. "Responses [formed] in the heat of the moment often don't turn out as they should," says Roberta Witty, a senior VP of research with Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner. "With emergency notification software, you develop scenarios ahead of time and then populate the messages, target groups, and time frames for response so that when an event or disaster occurs, you're 'locked-and-loaded' and ready to go."