Telstra on recruitment drive for mobility partners

Telstra is looking to recruit companies into its mobility partner program in an attempt to increase its share of the growing market for wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions.

Global GPS manufacturer Navman Wireless has been announced as one 144 partners within Telstra's mobility partner program, made up of companies spanning the transportation, vending, security and consumer electronics industries.

Included among them are NetComm, LogicalTech, Autophone Australia, Maxon Electronics, and Cooltrax.

Telstra’s director of M2M and partners Mike Cihra said the program’s existing partners were split between software developers, hardware developers, and systems integrators, and were mostly small to medium sized organisations.

“Those are the ones we find most responsible for developing M2M,” he said. “One of the benefits we see in terms of this program is we give them the opportunity for network support but also the opportunity to take the solutions out and introduce them to our sales team and customers.”

The program launch coincided with a push by the telco giant into the M2M market. Cihra described M2M technology as allowing devices to communicate information through wireless systems, and told CRN it was a fast growing market Telstra hoped to play a key role in.

“We wanted to help companies in terms of getting wireless solutions to sell to their customers, so it’s not about Telstra developing a wireless washing machine or photocopier or e-reader, it’s about providing companies an easy way to get wireless into their device to take out to customers,” he said.

“We’re staying core to our business in terms of having network coverage and capability to provide to our customers.”

Telstra’s Mobility Partner Program involves three tiers of membership: Bronze, the base level without criteria; second tier Silver; and top-level Gold, to which partners must meet certain volume and sales targets, and are in return rewarded with unspecified benefits. All three tiers gain proportionate levels of access to Telstra’s sales staff and customers.

Cihra said the majority of Telstra’s existing mobility partners were at Bronze level due to the new nature of their contracts.

“We have every expectation of getting a lot more in,” he said. “One of the reasons we’ve got this program is there are a lot of companies that are for the first time looking at wireless solutions they can bring into business that they haven’t thought about previously.”

Cihra cited the recent launch of Telstra’s LTE network as a further benefit for the company’s customers.

“It’s a capability that is now there for them, it gives them the opportunity to work with a company that’s got the coverage and speed relevant to the needs of their application,” he said.