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Feb 16, 2017 | News

Verizon acquires commercial drone solution provider Skyward

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Skyward’s commercial drone-operation-management solutions are getting a boost from Verizon. Verizon has announced it is purchasing Skyward to simplify drone operations and reduce complexity.

Verizon has been conducting its own drone research and development over the past couple of months. Together, the companies will be able to manage operations, improve safety, lower operating costs, and wirelessly connect drone operations in one clear workflow.

“Last quarter we announced our strategy to drive innovation and widespread adoption for in-flight wireless connectivity through our Airborne LTE Operations (ALO) initiative, a new service to simplify certification and connectivity of wireless drones. This acquisition is a natural progression of our core focus on operating in innovative, high-growth markets, leveraging our network, scale, fleet management, device management, data analytics and security enablement capabilities and services to simplify the drone industry and help support the adoption of IoT,” said Mike Lanman, senior vice president of enterprise products and IoT at Verizon.

Verizon will use Skyward’s technology to streamline drone operation management and create one platform designed to hand all drone activities, including mission planning, complex workflows, FAA compliance support, airspace information, drone registration, and provisioning rate plans.

“Drones are becoming an essential tool for improving business processes at large companies, but scalability has been a challenge. Skyward’s drone operations management platform combined with Verizon’s network, reliability, scale and expertise in delivering enterprise solutions will allow organizations to efficiently and safely scale drones across multiple divisions and hundreds of use cases,” said Jonathan Evans, founder and CEO of Skyward.