Post by
mrmoribund on Sep 11, 2024 11:18am
My take on the September 4 (re Minnesota) press release
For a few days that press release seemed to me somewhat paradoxical. My sense is the market was at first similarly befuddled.
On one hand, the company expressed the view that this was a big deal, a game changer.
On the other hand, there were no revenue numbers and people had to wonder, is this just 15 portable devices? Like, is this even material?
So it looked like some sort of disconnect--or maybe the company was grasping at anything that could be dressed up as good news. (I'm guessing that would be the Socrates1 interpretation.)
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My take on this is not informed by the company. This is just my current reading of the tea leaves.
I think to see the significance of this you need to look at it in the context of Quarterhill's competitors--and one in particular. Rekor.
I don't know if there were other companies competing for that (admittedly, not huge) piece of business, but it's a safe bet that Rekor would have been going after it aggressively. Note that this sort of thing, roadside edge computing traffic data collection, is at the heart of Rekor's reason for being. They've been crowing about it to the skies for 1-2 years plus landing many contracts.
Then on September 3 Rekor announced they've hired former IRD boss Rish Malhotra.
Then on September 4 Rekor released a new CEO letter detailing Rekor's grand vision. I would encourage people here to read it.
And then also on September 4 . . . oops:
Minnesota DOT Selects Quarterhill's iTHEIA™ AI Classification System for Traffic Monitoring
And then, a comment from MnDOT:
". . . The iTHEIA AI Classifier is the only way we can get FHWA 13 Class counts on some of our busy roadways."
Whoa. This sounds like Quarterhill's system is plain and simple more accurate on busy roadways. If so, I'm guessing Red Fox may have something to do with it. Pure guess.
Regardless, it sounds like Rekor may have a problem.
Now go take a look at Rekor's claims about the size of the market they think they're going after (in that September 4 CEO letter, among other places). Hint: it's big.
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This may give an idea as to how this could indeed be a game changer even if the $$$ amounts were not huge in that specific deal.
Comment by
cabbieJBJ on Sep 11, 2024 12:19pm
It's a low cost way to collect data. Data analysis is where the $$$ are. And the more data, the more robust the logistics offerings. That's my added read mrmoribund