BlackBerry Ltd. is looking to increase its footprint in the fleet management market by partnering up with Pana-Pacific and distributing its BlackBerry Radar tool across more than 2,800 heavy-duty truck dealerships across North America.
During a conference call Monday afternoon, John Trenberth, CEO of Pana-Pacific, said the firm will add the BlackBerry Radar system to its portfolio because of its ability to provide near-real-time information, saying it will allow customers to make better business decisions and ultimately improve their transportation operations’ overall performance.
Released last year, the BlackBerry Radar allows companies to gather information about their heavy-duty machinery’s location, temperature, physical contents of the trailer and other telematics. The device can interface with a truck’s systems and sends the data back to headquarters through a cellular connection.
Philip Poulidis, senior vice-president and general manager of Radar for BlackBerry, said the product collects up to 100 times more data than conventional GPS-based tracking technology.
Collected data is secured on a cloud platform and the user’s privacy is maintained at all times, he said. According to BlackBerry’s website, it takes 10 minutes to install Radar on a vehicle.
The BlackBerry Radar device.
“It’s a very innovative traffic data solution,” said Poulidis.
He didn’t share any price points Monday, but pointed to BlackBerry’s announced customers to date, which includes Caravan, Titanium Transportation, FedEx and Modagrafics.
In addition to the partnership announcement with Pana-Pacific, BlackBerry announced an expansion of their partnership with Fleet Complete Tuesday morning. Fleet Complete added the Radar-M devices for its BigRoad Freight program. The program allows drivers to book the loads they want and manage schedules 24/7 through its mobile app.
BlackBerry partnered with Fleet Complete in September and entered into a reselling partnership to expand Fleet Complete’s fleet-tracking and monitoring tools.
Fleet Complete has approximately 250,000 subscribers in about 10,000 businesses worldwide.