NIB: Sigfox nabs Nokia man; u-blox’s remote IoT lock; Libelium, Alibaba pair up

Sigfox nabs ex-Nokia man to head up US sales

Sigfox has appointed former Nokia man Murray Kawchuk as vice president of sales for its US business. Kawchuk will lead the company’s sales, engineering and IoT teams, develop partnerships with device makers, system integrators, and other parties, and drive the company’s “next phase of growth”. He will be based in Dallas.

Kawchuk has helped grow several tech startups and has led commercial and strategic drives at Axesstel and Nokia. He was at Nokia for more than a decade, until 2006, in a variety of sales roles. Sigfox said it has grown its base of connected devices by 400 per cent in the past 12 months in the US, and tripled its number of use cases.

GPS padlock from u-blox brings remote control

IoT module maker u-blox has announced a connected GPS padlock for industrial applications, which allows for remote locking and unlocking. The solution allows plant managers to flexibly grant access to goods under lock without being there.

The i-Lock solution, developed by India-based GPS solutions provider Play INC, offers a variety of access methods, including physical keys and keyless approaches using remote GPRS and SMS passwords as well as Bluetooth low energy or cloud-based communication via mobile device apps.

The lock’s GNSS receiver also lets users track goods in transit. It features a u‑blox M8 GNSS receiver, MAX-M8Q, and uses u‑blox’s CellLocate service to extend positioning to indoor locations. In the event the padlock is forcefully opened, owners are immediately alerted via a server or SMS.

Libelium integrates Alibaba Cloud into IoT gateway

Spanish IoT sensor maker Libelium has signed a deal with Alibaba Cloud to integrate its Meshlium sensor platform with Alibaba’s cloud solutions. Enterprises will be able to scale their IoT projects easily, said Libelium.

Libelium and Alibaba will combine to “foster” new partners to deliver new applications and packaged IoT solutions to sell via Libelium’s IoT marketplace, which its owners says is the only store for complete “ready-to-deploy” IoT solutions.

Libelium’s Meshlium gateway now supports 40 cloud connectors, including Amazon Web Services, Ericsson, Microsoft Azure, IBM Bluemix, Fujitsu, Telit, NEC, Telefónica and Thingworx.