Ingram Micro signs on maker of novel hands-free, in-car mobility solution 6 June, 2010 By Mark Cox

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"IMS has been around for over a decade, starting out as an R&D company which was initially focused on safety automotive products like air bag deployment systems and intelligent seat belt reminder systems," said Ken Truffen, Vice President, Marketing at IMS. Six years ago they introduced DriveSync, a modular vehicle telematics system that uses GPS and cellular technologies to track when, where, how far, how fast and how aggressively a vehicle is driven, in real-time. While it was initially sold through retail and targeted at teen drivers as an aftermarket safety product, it is now being commercialized in trials with insurance companies for opt-in insurance programs, which would offer insurance rates based on measured driving behavior and how safe people drive.

"iLane was product that our founder saw a need for," Truffen said. "He knew SmartPhones would explode in the market, and also saw emailing and texting was dangerous. iLane means your eyes stay on the road and your hands stay on the wheel."

iLane has been on the market for a year, and to date has gone to market primarily through wireless carriers in both Canada and the U.S.

"Early on we asked people where they would expect to buy it, and they said where they buy their Blackberry, so the wireless carriers and their retail stores were our primary focus," Truffen said. "We see this IT distributor deal as complementing our carrier deal. It will bring us into the enterprise and vertical markets like real estate and pharmas, which have people who spend more than an hour a day in the car."

Truffen thinks these markets can become as significant as their carrier channel, especially with the growth of hands free-calling legislation.

"We are still the only in-car device, which separates us from the software solutions," he said. "There is no third party server that is doing it." And the vendors won't be doing it he said, because it would double or triple the size of a phone. The sheer computing or processing power would drain the battery of today's smartphones in five minutes, he said.

Ingram Micro Canada Mobility Division will work among its' resellers to grow their mobility practices with the iLane solution.

"We are doing a training tour with them," Truffen said. "We get in front of their reps on a regular basis."

Truffen says that going forward, their addressable markets are likely to expand significantly.

"The whole connected car concept is becoming very popular, and we see iLane and DriveSync becoming converged," he said.

Ingram Micro is likely to facilitate this in the U.S. as well, he added.

"We will very likely do this with them in the U.S.," he said.