Iridium signs new value-added partners for satellite mobile data products

MCLEAN, USA: Iridium Communications Inc. has signed agreements with five new value-added partners to market Iridium-based data solutions for the mobile machine-to-machine (M2M) sector. These new partnerships, including the company's first-ever consumer Iridium short-burst data (SBD) relationships, open up numerous customer opportunities.

"Alliances with well-established, world-class partners will spearhead our growth, and solidify our market leadership, in transportation, industrial, security, consumer and other higher-volume sectors," said Greg Ewert, executive vice president, global distribution channels, Iridium. "The companies will leverage Iridium's global, low-latency, two-way satellite data links and our next-generation Iridium 9602 SBD transceiver to create innovative, low-cost M2M solutions for broad-based government, commercial and consumer markets."

The new partners are:

ACR Electronics, a subsidiary of Cobham plc, manufactures safety and survival products for marine, aviation and military markets. As an Iridium Value Added Reseller (VAR), ACR is extending its range of renowned emergency distress alerting beacons to include true global two-way text messaging and tracking capabilities. The company will be offering its innovative TXT-100 device together with a range of airtime contracts through its extensive global distribution network.

DeLorme is the longtime leader in breakthrough mapping and GPS solutions for both consumer and professional markets, and creator of the Earthmate GPS receiver. The company's business and government solutions include a variety of World and North America mapping datasets -- owned and produced by DeLorme -- as well as flexible XMap GIS software tools.

Digi International is a leading developer of wireless M2M solutions. From satellite to ZigBee, its wireless products connect devices in telematics, fleet management, industrial, government, Smart Energy and numerous other applications. Digi also offers the iDigi cloud Web-hosted service, which makes it easy to integrate devices into a company's back-end systems.

KORE Telematics, the world's largest global communications services provider with 100 percent focus in M2M communications, is partnering with Iridium to integrate satellite connectivity into its market-leading PRiSMPro platform, delivering this expanded services capability to its partners across the globe. Satellite connectivity is a natural complement to the extensive KORE cellular deliveries which, in partnership with leading worldwide carriers, include both CDMA and GSM technologies. With Iridium, KORE now provides truly global coverage for applications in supply chain management, logistics, industrial monitoring and multiple other industries.

Xact Technology LLC is a leading solutions provider for the GPS tracking, Location-Based Services (LBS) and M2M industries. Xact's open architecture platform (hardware, software, data networks and user-interface portals) offers end-to-end solutions in less time and with lower cost.

"With these partnerships, Iridium is aligning itself with best-of-breed companies that are the clear market leaders in remote tracking, monitoring and control applications," said Patrick Shay, vice president of data services, Iridium. "These are industry-leading M2M companies with the expertise, customer relationships and market clout that will further accelerate market growth for Iridium's satellite data business."

Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates, commented: "Iridium's new low-cost SBD transceiver and partnerships with established world-class players in the mobile data industry will further accelerate Iridium's already rapid growth in the M2M sector. We believe the company is well positioned to capture a significant share of the market for low-data-rate mobile satellite devices, which is projected to grow by more than 20 percent annually to more than 3.4 million units in service by the end of 2014."

Iridium is announcing these new agreements this week at its 2011 Partners Conference in New Orleans, where more than 400 representatives from 150 partner companies around the globe are in attendance.