In a 1998 spin-off from Global Electric Corp, the Diversified Electronics Corporation had been given two families of products: The Air Control Group included a variety of devices to manage the composition of the air in controlled situations, and the Health Care Group included pace makers and hearing aids. Subsequent to the spin-off, management decided to push beyond these initial products so that the company now had its own version of a GPS system and had other consumer-oriented products in the pipeline.