The former head of Optus’ IoT practice Anthony Stewart has joined Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong Sigfox network operator Thinxtra as general manager sales.
Thinxtra described him as an industry pioneer who has worked extensively with Australian IoT early adopters since the early 2000s. He has been with Optus since 2010, initially as M2M market development manager and most recently associate director IoT and M2M.
Stewart said he was “delighted to join Thinxtra to make a significant contribution to the proliferation of IoT in ANZ through the market leading Sigfox low power, low cost IoT sensor nationwide networks.”
While Thinxtra has gained considerable traction with Sigfox since launching services in 2016, — it now has some 2.45 million connections in Australia — Optus does not appear to have made much headway with NB-IoT based on its cellular network, despite touting the technology for several years.
A blog post on the Optus web site in July 2017 talked up the benefits of NB-IoT, saying: “NB-IoT is expected to be a highly viable option for many companies, across many industries, in the journey to embrace IoT solutions.
Ovum produced a report in January 2018 “Optus ups its game in IoT in Australia,” (available only to clients) saying Optus had updated analysts on its IoT strategy, “presenting a coherent approach to date on how it will tackle the opportunities that the IoT industry will present itself.”
Ovum said Optus had notched up some early successes with retailers, shopping malls, office buildings, and public spaces. However there is little evidence of Optus’ IoT success on its web site.
