Everything Everywhere's (EE) new CEO, Olaf Swantee, is injecting new urgency into the company via its push into the machine-to-machine market.
The operator, which Swantee is targeting to find new revenue sources, is looking to gain traction by using M2M to position itself in vertical markets including health, education, logistics and transport. The company's new M2M Management Platform is a propriety M2M platform developed in partnership with Transatel and EE said it will allow business customers to securely manage their accounts and connections wherever they are.
Commenting to Mobile Today, Marc Overton, EE's vice president of wholesale and M2M, said that M2M is now a significant growth opportunity for EE. "We are redefining what wholesale and M2M do, not only in the UK but via France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom's international footprint, which gives us a real opportunity to compete against Vodafone for international business," he said.
Overton adds that Swantee sees M2M as a key growth driver, and that the strategy has his full backing. "It's no longer about being just a network operator." Overaton also said that over the next 12 months EE will be announcing more and more deals "as we start to build credibility in this category and educate various verticals on what we can do for them."
As part of this thrust, EE has revealed new partnerships with US-based Redtail Technologies and its UK-based subsidiary Plextek to offer M2M services including vehicle tracking, fleet management and smart vehicle insurance.
"They are a great channel for us and give us a much broader reach," Overton told Mobile News. "They will be moving into the smart meter market eventually and our network will now be part of their solutions." EE said it is looking to attract other partners to help its push into the M2M market.
For more:
- see this release
- see this Mobile Today article
- see this Mobile News article
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