Ingram Micro has signed an agreement with CoreKinect to provide customized Internet of Things device manufacturing services to its channel partners.
The distributor announced the new offering during its IoT Summit event today in Irvine, Calif.
Based in Tempe, Ariz., CoreKinect helps integrators design, build, and commercialize IoT hardware tailored to the needs of specific smart home, smart city, asset tracking, and other solutions, rapidly and at scale.†
“We are pleased to work with CoreKinect,” said Tim Ament, senior vice president of advanced solutions at Ingram Micro, in a media statement. “This strategic alliance expands our capabilities and allows us to offer channel partners greater flexibility to deliver on IoT solutions today verses waiting for sensor technology to be created for specific use cases. The ability to custom build a sensor specific to an end customer’s environment is a game changer for channel partners and we are proud to be the first distributor to market with CoreKinect.”
According to John Horn, president and chief strategy officer for CoreKinect, the vendor provides a service badly needed by integrators and solution providers in the present era of turbocharged IoT innovation.
“With rapid innovation happening around the Internet of Things, there’s still a gap in sensor technology that exists today between customers having very specific needs and certain sensor technologies not fitting exact requirements,” said Horn in prepared remarks. “We believe ‘THINGS’ should be simple. Through a strong dedication to design principles, CoreKinect has the unique ability to rapidly develop and manufacture custom IoT solutions that deliver unprecedented scale in previously unachievable timeframes.”†
Though CoreKinect tends to work with larger IT firms serving larger clients, the company contends, its services are potentially a fit for SMB channel partners as well.
“Most of our designs are for large-scale deployments,” said Horn in emailed remarks to ChannelPro. “However, our model makes it much easier to make modifications if necessary for smaller runs. We would look at each on a case by case basis.”†
Ingram, which is currently CoreKinect’s sole distribution partner, will offer custom device services to solution providers in the United States through the global Internet of Things practice that it launched in 2017 and expanded into the U.S. last year. The goal is to help IT companies with hardware needs not presently met by off-the-shelf sensors complete IoT projects and ship IoT products faster.
More broadly, as ChannelPro reported in May, Ingram aims to be an “orchestration layer” for IoT solutions by helping partners assemble the right set of software, services, and hardware for their exact requirements. The alliance agreement with CoreKinect adds custom sensors to the ready-made hardware the distributor offered previously.
“The business impact of IoT is undeniable, and opens a new and evergreen revenue stream for channel partners who are skilled to market, sell, securely deploy and manage sensor technology,” said Eric Hembree, director of IoT for Ingram in the U.S., in a press statement “CoreKinect is a leader within the IoT market, and we look forward to enabling our channel partners and scaling our success together.” †
According to Horn, fees for CoreKinect services procured through Ingram will vary based on the complexity and size of the project. “Pricing is on a product by product basis and is very competitive,” he says.
Though up and running in the U.S. scarcely more than a year, Ingram’s IoT practice has made rapid progress in a short time. Key milestones include the launch of an online marketplace with a wide selection of products, kits, and complete IoT solutions in March and the introduction of both training resources and a wide range of professional services.†
Ingram announced a pact to market, sell, and support Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 mixed reality goggles on Monday.
