Omnitracs Partners With Red Hat to Develop Fleet-Management Technology
Omnitracs has formed a partnership with Red Hat, a major provider of open-source, cloud-based software, to help facilitate its migration to a more modern system architecture for its existing and future applications.
The company said this transition to a “cloud-native” architecture will accelerate the ongoing development of its unified software platform, Omnitracs One, which combines its various product lines into a single, comprehensive offering for fleets of all sizes.
Essentially, this redesigned product architecture will separate Omnitracs’ software into two layers — shared services and unique applications.
Red Hat’s exhibit highlights its collaboration with Omnitracs at the technology vendor’s Outlook 2019 user conference in Dallas. (Seth Clevenger/Transport Topics)
“With this platform-centric approach, we can get to market with new products 40-60% faster,” said Kent Norton, Omnitracs’ chief technology officer. “There’s a lot of automation that will happen automatically through the redesign of the underlying architecture of our platform.”
The collaboration with Red Hat also will help Omnitracs transform its software development culture, he added. “We’re utilizing their development best practices as part of that process.”
OMNITRACS CLOUD: Boosting Fleet Efficiency Through 'Cloud' Platform
Omnitracs announced the partnership Feb. 21, a few days ahead of its Outlook 2019 user conference, held Feb. 24-27 in Dallas.
By embracing new technologies, Omnitracs is “converting from being a traditional software company to a digital platform provider,” John Allessio, Red Hat’s vice president of global services and enablement, said in the announcement.
As part of the redesign, Omnitracs also has set out to modernize the user experience for its fleet customers by improving the way its software looks, feels and responds, Norton said.
While Omnitracs works with Red Hat to build its new system architecture, the company also is developing the first application that will run on it.
That first app will be designed to streamline IFTA fuel-tax reporting, he said. The company aims to introduce that product in the third quarter.
The partnership with Omnitracs comes during a significant time for Red Hat.
Last year, IBM announced plans to acquire Red Hat for about $34 billion. That deal is expected to close in the second half of the year.
Norton expressed confidence that Red Hat’s acquisition will not affect its work with Omnitracs.
