TomTom Reports Roller Coaster 2020, Partners with Several Companies
Location Pioneer Sees Stable 2021
Like many location companies, Dutch mapping giant TomTom [Tom2.AS] had a challenging 2020. The company, in its fourth quarter and 2020 final earnings conference call, said that dealing with the global COVID-19 pandemic will remain a challenge in 2021.
“Our enterprise business showed resilience and our automotive operational revenue recovered since the lows experienced in the second quarter,” said Harold Goddijn, TomTom CEO. “Our 2020 order intake was strong and on the normal circumstances backlog would have grown. However, our automotive customers have revised downward their forecasts for 2021 and 2022, which offsets the strong order intake.”
TomTom’s revenues dropped more than 25 percent in 2020, according to reports.
TomTom Renews Alliance With Precisely
During the call, TomTom said it was extending their long-term deal with Precisely. The deal calls for TomTom to provide Precisely, formerly Pitney Bowes, with map and traffic datasets for their location intelligence products.
Precisely will use TomTom’s map and real-time traffic data, sourced from 600 million connected devices, the company said. “Precisely will also share some of the data and observed changes in the database back to TomTom in the context of our map adding partnership a program we intend to roll out to more partners,” Goddijn said.
The company also announced deals with:
Targa Telematics for the company’s mapping APIs.
Mitsubishi Motors has chosen our full stack navigation to power the new Eclipse Cross infotainment system.
2021 Looks Positive
For the fourth quarter of 2020, company CFO Taco Titulaer said that the group revenue was 125 million euro, which was down 20 percent from the same time the year before. However, the Location Technology unit reported 101 million euros in revenue, which outperformed company expectations, he said.
In 2021, Titulaer said TomTom plans to:
Increase group revenue to between 520 million euros to 570 million euros.
Increase location technology between 420 million euros and 450 million euros (based on company expectation that car production volumes will not return to 2019 levels).
Increase its R&D to 330 million euros.
Decrease operating expenses from 711 million euros to 520 million euros.
Most of the 2021 company revenue will be based on backlog, including $1.8 billion in automotive receipts, Titulaer said. “We expect to grow our location technology revenue about 550 million euros in 2023,” he said.
Company Offers Indoor Mapping Service
A Denver-based company is offering a full-service Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF) platform that allows customers to enable wayfinding through a maze of indoor medical campuses, deliver contactless shopping, guide first responders in emergencies and other applications.
The platform, called IMDFaaS (IMDF as a Service), was developed by supply chain technology company EVS. The company says that while indoor mapping is exciting, adding interactive indoor maps or indoor location services to an organization’s applications or buildings has been too cumbersome, lengthy and costly.
“Here's the problem—when you go to a typical mapping company looking for an indoor map and indoor positioning, they're going to sell you a siloed solution, on a closed ecosystem, that’s often limited to one building. Often, when you really dig down deep, the end result is just a PNG or JPEG with a few wayfinding dots,” said Judd Swanson, IMDFaaS senior vice president, geospatial and indoor positioning.
Swanson says that developers, IT departments, and building owners don’t want to be locked into one vendor or ecosystem and they want the flexibility to be able to leverage their maps over multiple platforms, including apps, the web and digital kiosks. “Recognizing that organizations weren’t getting the experience or product they wanted from traditional indoor mapping companies, and after facing this frustration several years ago ourselves, we set out to build our own system for indoor mapping based on the open GeoJSON standard,” he said. “It turns out that Apple saw this as a major problem as well and came up with a similar solution to create a standardized model for representing indoor space based off of GeoJSON. But Apple went a step further and opened it up for everyone as an open digital standard through the creation of IMDF. We immediately adopted IMDF back when it was in its early beta stages.”
Apple developed IMDF to deliver indoor maps for worldwide venues. This allows Apple Maps users to navigate indoors and to discover such services and attractions as shopping and dining.
“Apple Indoor Positioning (IPS) is a wonderful little bit of magic that Apple has been able to pull off,” Swanson said. “The real beauty of Apple's IPS is that it brings incredibly accurate indoor positioning (in our experience within a meter or two) to every Apple device that enters the venue without the need for an individual to download a special application, and typically without the need for the venue owner to install any specialized hardware.”
OGC High on IMDF
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is considering IMDF as a community standard. OGC members Apple, Autodesk Esri, Google and others have shared their support for the adoption, the company said. Swanson that the seal of approval from these major indoor positioning players “has blown the doors off of siloed” platforms.
IMDFaaS works in tandem with an IMDF file, Swanson said. “Once that file is created, we can submit it to Apple, and begin fingerprinting that building, using a special application provided by [them]. The application is listening passively for WIFI signals and uses those signals in combination with the IMDF file to create a fingerprint unique to that venue,” he said. “When an individual with an Apple device approaches the venue, the device downloads that fingerprint from the cloud and compares that WIFI signal on device with the pattern. [This brings] accurate indoor positioning, and seamless indoor-outdoor positing to every user without them having to do a thing.”
Overall, the real benefit of IMDF for organizations pursuing indoor maps and location services is the establishment of a standardized indoor format for creating their building's digital twin—and to bring GPS-level functionality and user experience indoors, Swanson said.
“One model [is] to run every use case from wayfinding, to security, to maintenance, to occupant lists. And because IMDF supports extensions we can write objects for anything. For example, currently we can access our offices security camera feeds directly from our map,” he said. “COOs can optimize their workforce and deliver a better employee experience. It’s no exaggeration to say that the possibilities are endless. We believe that IMDFaaS will usher in a new era of indoor mapping and facilitate a transformational change in how people interact with indoor spaces.”
Contact: Judd Swanson, IMDFaaS, imdf@evssw.com.
Dallas Company Scores First Commercial Auto Tracking Deal
Dallas-based Polte Corp. said its recent mobile IoT location integration deal with PassTime GPS constitutes its first commercial agreement covering automotive tracking. Polte will integrate its technology into PassTime’s Encore asset trackers early this year.
“While we are exploring proofs of concept with other similar use cases, we are excited to go to market with PassTime GPS in our first commercial deal covering automotive tracking in the Buy Here Pay Here market,” said Polte CEO Ed Chao.
Chao said that Polte augments PassTime’s satellite navigation-based Encore asset trackers by providing cellular-based location where GPS does not work—including indoors in parking garages or in dense urban areas. “This gives their customers the ability to recover vehicles significantly more easily and efficiently.”
In addition to the Buy Here Pay Here dealers, markets for PassTime GPS include franchise dealers, powersports dealers and auto finance companies.
Carriers? What Carriers?
For years, Polte has been tight-lipped about which carriers have tested their C-LoC technology—and CEO Chao still doesn’t want to mention any by company name.
“Polte has completed testing with several carriers globally and with many solution providers directly. Testing has been completed in Asia, Europe and North America, proving our ability to provide a global footprint where other cellular location solutions are limited to carrier networks or lack accuracy,” he said.
Contact: Christina Gaines, Polte, christina@polte.com.
NIST Report Touts GPS Economic Benefits
Although it was completed in June 2019, the Economic Benefits of the Global Positioning System (GPS) report, prepared by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and prepared by RTI International, has great technology and market information. The free 309-page report, also quotes Kevin Dennehy about location technology in drones.
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Location Industry Briefs
CalAmp Grabs Atlanta Public School Fleet Contract
CalAmp [CAMP] said Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is adopting its Here Comes The Bus school bus tracking technology. APS will install more than 400 buses with CalAmp's mobile GPS fleet intelligence devices and software. APS will also use CalAmp's tablet and app-based Trip Inspection module to help comply with daily, state-mandated school bus inspections.
The Here Comes The Bus, developed in 2015 by CalAmp's subsidiary, Synovia Solutions, has been integrated into 330 school districts across North America. CalAmp bought Synovia in 2019.
Trimble Partners With Roborace, ESRI
Trimble [TRMB] and autonomous racing car company Roborace signed a deal that will put the GNSS company’s Applanix POS LVS GNSS-inertial systems in next generation autonomous race cars. Roborace, which launched the first autonomous racing series with electric-powered cars, will use the Trimble unit in its Season 1 championship series, the company said. Trimble will serve as Roborace’s official GNSS-inertial positioning technology partner to leverage positioning and autonomy, the companies say.
In other company news, Trimble plans to integrate the Esri GeospatialCloud platform into Trimble’s Connected Forest product line. The integration provides location intelligence technology for forest industry applications.
Contact: LeaAnn McNabb, Trimble, leaann_mcnabb@trimble.com.
Kontakt.io Integrating Indoor Location and IoT Services into Cisco Platform
Kontakt.io is integrating its indoor location and IoT services into the Cisco DNA Spaces platform to enable Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) products in workspaces, healthcare and education the company said. Cisco DNA Spaces, an indoor location services cloud platform, offers LBS through a platform that is compatible with the company’s other infrastructure products.
Kontakt.io’s CEO, Philipp von Gilsa, says that “Cisco owns half of the enterprise ceiling across verticals globally.” This includes enabling access points to function as Bluetooth LE gateways, von Gilsa said. In addition, the company said that with existing API integration in place, Cisco customers can use Kontakt.io apps for asset tracking, temperature monitoring and occupancy management.
Contact: Aneta Ciurkot, Kontakt.io, aneta@kontakt.io.
Booth Transport to Use Orbcomm Asset Tracking
Orbcomm [ORBC] will provide Australia’s Booth Transport its asset tracking units to monitor the company’s fleet of ISO tanks, road tankers and chassis, the company said. Booth, which is one of the larger fleet companies in Australia, plans to use Orbcomm’s asset tracking, including a solar panel and temperature sensor, for their mixed fleet. This allows Booth to monitor the temperature of dairy products in tanks and know where trucks are in their yards.
Contact: Sue Rutherford, Orbcomm, rutherford.sue@orbcomm.com.
PowerFleet Announces Underwritten Public Offering
PowerFleet [PWFL] announced an underwritten public offering of 3.85 million shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $6.50 per share. PowerFleet has also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 577,500 shares of its common stock, the company said. PowerFleet says the gross receipts of the offering are expected to be more than $25 million.
Contact: Ned Mavrommatis, PowerFleet, NMavrommatis@powerfleet.com.
Link Labs Offers Eval Kit on Amazon
Annapolis, Md.-based Link Labs says its AirFinder SuperTag Pro Evaluation Kit is available on Amazon for $749. AirFinder SuperTag, a commercial tracking device, incorporates five different technologies: GPS/GNSS, WiFi location lookup, Cell ID, Polte and Link Labs’ AirFinder Indoor Positioning Network. The company says the product can track assets indoors and outdoors through a web app or to customer databases.
Link Labs was founded in 2014 by a group of engineers from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, who had worked together on a variety of projects for the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. intelligence community and the telecommunications industry, the company said.
Contact: Link Labs, https://www.link-labs.com
GSA and Eutelsat Sign Deal for EGNOS GEO-4 Service
The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has selected Eutelsat Communications [ETL] for the development, integration and operation of its next-generation EGNOS GEO-4 service. The contract calls for a 15-year service provision and is worth 100 million euros. Of that amount, 85 million euros is subject to confirmation of funds allocated to the EGNOS program from the European Union budget for the period 2021-2027.
Eutelsat operates the EGNOS GEO-3 payload on its EUTELSAT 5 West B satellite, which entered into service in February 2020. Built by Airbus Defence and Space, EUTELSAT HOTBIRD 13G satellite, which will host the EGNOS GEO-4 payload, is scheduled to be launched in the first half of 2022.
Contact: Joanna Darlington, Eutelsat Communications, jdarlington@eutelsat.com.
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