Axon Enterprise, Inc. is an American Scottsdale, Arizona-based company which develops technology and weapons products for military, law enforcement, and civilians. Its initial product and former namesake is the Taser, a line of electroshock weapons. The company has since diversified into technology products for military and law enforcement, including a line of body cameras and Evidence.com, a cloud-based digital evidence platform. As of 2017, body cameras and associated services comprise a quarter of Axon's overall business. History In 1969, NASA researcher Jack Cover began to develop a non-lethal electric weapon to help police officers control suspects, as an alternative to firearms. By 1974, Cover had completed the device, which he named the "Tom Swift Electric Rifle" (TSER), referencing the 1911 novel Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle; to make it easier to pronounce as a word, Cover later added an "A" to the acronym to form "TASER". The Taser Public Defender used gunpowder as its propellant, which led the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to classify it as a firearm in 1976, a decision that limited sales. In 1980, the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a successful field test of an improved version (having reconsidered its earlier rejections of the technology after the shooting of Eula Love), but the device remained commercially unsuccessful and Cover's company, Taser Systems Inc., collapsed. In 1993, Rick and Tom Smith formed AIR TASER, Inc. to, with Cover, design a version of the device that would use compressed nitrogen instead of gunpowder as a propellant. During development, the company faced competition from another vendor, Tasertron, whose product had become associated with its alleged ineffectiveness during the police confrontation of Rodney King. After nearly going bankrupt marketing other products such as an electroshock-based anti-theft system for automobiles known as "Auto Taser", the company, later renamed TASER International, introduced its TASER M26 weapon in 1999. With a $6.8 million deficit in 2001, TASER International took steps to improve sales by offering to pay police officers to train others on how to use their products; this marketing technique helped improve the company's market share, reaching $24.5 million in net sales by 2003, and nearly $68 million in 2004. In May 2001, they filed for an initial public offering and began trading on NASDAQ under the stock symbol TASR. The company also took significant action against competitors, having acquired the aforementioned Tasertron, and aggressively defending its patents. Patent