Verizon launches connected vehicle management firm

US telco Verizon has launched its own connected vehicle and mobile resource management firm in a bid to tap into a growing, billion-dollar market.

The tech giant has rolled three of its acquisitions, European automotive tech firms Telogis, Fleetmatic, and Movildata, into a single brand called Verizon Connect.

New offerings

Over the next few years, Verizon Connect aims to develop vehicle software that increases driver performance, productivity, and efficiency. The solutions will be aimed at “customers of all sizes, from large enterprises and SMEs through to individual consumers”, said the company in a written statement.

Verizon Connect said that it is also working on technologies that tap into areas such as mobile workforce management, efficiency, compliance, and productivity. Other solutions will include embedded OEM hardware, and a connected vehicle device that improves driver safety.

The new firm is supported by 3,500 professionals across telematics, mobile technology, and fleet management, said the announcement.

Verizon Connect will work with “unmatched network quality, reliability, and scale to develop solutions for the connected car market”, it added, explaining that the launch is the “culmination of more than $5 billion of investment in the technologies helping to enable vehicles’ connected future”.

Andrés Irlando, CEO of Verizon Connect, said his company is looking to transform the driving experience for businesses and consumers around the world. “One of the things we’re most proud of at Verizon Connect is the potential our current and future technologies have for massive societal impact,” he explained.

Irlando added that the firm will be “rerouting customers’ vehicles more efficiently to reduce emissions, monitoring vehicle diagnostics to improve fuel efficiency, and providing a gamification app that helps customers recognise and reward their safest drivers.

Internet of Business says

So far, 2018 has seen an unusual number of connected car IoT partnerships announced, along with a series of new applications aimed at resource management and helping drivers with a range of new services, especially for electric vehicles.

These innovative programmes don’t just help consumers, but also professional drivers across diverse fields, such as transport, logistics, the supply chain, and fleet management.

This, then, is the new normal: cars are getting smarter – as is transport generally. Smart, connected services, and the data that results from them, will be one of the major battlegrounds over the next few years, both among car makers and their technology partners.

Cars are massive data points, in terms of how they’re performing, how they’re being used, and how they relate to the organisations that manage them, and the world around them.