Gurtam 2020 events review: results against all odds

Despite all the difficulties that we faced in the past 2020 and that Aliaksandr Kuushynau, Head of Wialon Division, has already talked about, many good things happened over the past 12 months. Today, let's take a look at the results of the community’s and company’s work during the last year.

Units connected in 2020

Reduced commercial vehicles’ mileage, border closures, tight lockdowns, and businesses breaks could not prevent you from connecting more units to Wialon. Over the past 12 months, their number has exceeded 272,000.

• We entered 2020 on a positive note with 2,300,000 connected units. And already in March, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, another 100,000 units were added to the system – the American company SouthWinds GPS connected the 2,400,000th unit.

• The historic two and a half million units on Wialon happened last summer. The anniversary vehicle was connected in Spain. And if you, for some reason, don’t know in which country Wialon has the largest number of units and how many of them are on Local or Hosting, then check out the numbers in the anniversary infographic on our blog.

• In November 2020, GPS7000, a company from Chile, registered the 2,600,000th unit on the platform.

Angelo Mosso, CEO GPS7000, with Esteban Hunt and Aliaksei Schurko

Hardware

In 2020, we integrated 132 new types of devices in Wialon. To top it off, we:

• integrated the popular platform for MDVR CMSv6 in Wialon Hosting and Wialon Local;
• added a new Video tab in the Wialon interface for convenient and quick work with video;

New Video tab in the Wialon interface 

• visited Teltonika and Xirgo Global – it will help us cooperate even more effectively;
• compiled a selection of personal trackers for your projects;
• interviewed Queclink, who made it to the GPS Hardware Manufacturers TOP 10 rating in 2020, and the rating winner, Navtelecom;
• held several joint webinars with hardware manufacturers.

IoT zones, conferences, and exhibitions

Reading such a subtitle in 2021 might feel a little weird, right? However, during the past year, that wasn’t the easiest for offline events, we managed to:

• take part in the CES 2020 show in Las Vegas, USA;
• meet partners in Barcelona despite the cancellation of MWC Barcelona;
• arrange an IoT zone at GITEX 2020 in Dubai with all necessary precautions;

Gurtam IoT-zone at GITEX 2020

• meet partner companies from the Middle East region at the Telematics Dubai conference the day before GITEX;
• speak online at Telematics CEEurope 2020;
• take part in several online partner conferences.

We don’t know how the pandemic situation will evolve, but just in case, we already plan to start preparing for IoT zones at major industry shows in various regions along with partner events.

Practical examples of Wialon use from around the world at Telematics Dubai. Watch the rest of the videos from the partner conference on our YouTube channel.

Anti-COVID measures for the community

To minimize the consequences of the pandemic for the partner companies, we:

• prepared a relief plan to support the partner community;
• developedan interactive map to track changes in the mileage of commercial transport across the countries;
• made Wialon certification free;
• launched the COVID-19 IoT Alliance to help projects aimed at combating coronavirus;
• created a guide on doing business from quarantine;
• released Distance Tag, a new Wialon-based solution for personal monitoring;
• started the first season of Gurtam meetups (aka Gurtam TV).

Gurtam TV and awards ceremonies

Because of the worldwide pandemic, thousands of events have been canceled, including the Olympic Games, Formula 1, book fairs, concerts, entertainment shows, etc.

For Gurtam, our partners’ health also remains a priority, and this is one of the reasons why summer 2020 was not marked by the next partner conference Telematics Minsk. But we launched and keep releasing online meetups on burning topics. Starting March, we have had more than 50 episodes in 4 languages to get all community members involved in the activity. The second season of meetups began in October, and new episodes appear every other week on our YouTube channel. Join us! You will also find recordings of all previous episodes there. On our blog, we also made a selection of the most popular meetups of the first season for you.

"Personal monitoring with WiaTag. New opportunities during COVID-19 times" is the meetup that had the biggest number of views in the first season.

Telematics Minsk was canceled, and, as a result, we couldn’t hold Wialon TOP 50 Global and GPS Hardware Manufacturers TOP 10 awards ceremony in the usual format – at the gala party closing the conference.

However, by the end of summer, everyone got so used to virtual meetings that they were not surprised when the awards ceremonies took place online. We bottom lined the community's work over the past 12 months and awarded the best of the best. However, we hope that soon we will be able to organize these ceremonies offline.

In 2020, a new event joined the usual ratings – the IoT project of the year competition where we chose the best telematics and IoT projects in 16 nominations. Our partners from all over the world submitted over a hundred projects for the competition. The award ceremony took place a little later than planned but still was a blast. Therefore, we can say with confidence that the competition will definitely be held in 2021! You can already start thinking about the projects you will submit.

Products

• In 2020, we added 160 new features to Wialon Hosting and flagship applications, not to mention numerous minor improvements.
• We released Wialon Local 2004, which included Hecterra, the application for tracking field operations based on telematics data, the option to use the CMSv6 video monitoring platform, and the option to use hardware that works via flespi.
• We rebooted Logistics, a delivery management solution that we are going to develop and refine in 2021.
• We carried out a large-scale NimBus update so that the app could meet those user requirements that were hard to implement before, such as convenient work with circular routes and the automatic assignment of one unit from a set. Join beta testing!
• We implemented a configurable navigation bar in the Wialon app for iOS and Android.

And it is only a small part of what we worked on over the past year. Check the Updates tag on the blog to find more details.

What else?

And finally, last but not least:

• In October, we released another useful tool on gurtam.com for attracting end customers – the Wialon partner map.
• Towards the end of 2020, we launched a marketplace for Wialon-based applications, where we gathered the fullest collection of the solutions developed on top of Wialon and integrated with the system for 18 years. Check out the blog for details, as always.
• Just at the end of December, a couple of weeks ago, we received an award and a certificate from ABI Research, confirming Gurtam's status as a top telematics vendor according to the agency's research.

• Another analytical agency, Berg Insight, also announced Gurtam to be the leading fleet management software provider in Eastern Europe, CIS, and Russia.

Plans for 2021

Despite the challenges that the world faced in 2020, in 2021, we will remain the leaders in the GPS monitoring market and continue to grow and develop adjusting to the current conditions.

• As for Wialon Hosting, we will focus on expanding its current range of features. Besides, we will actively work on the event system, vector maps, Dashboard, as well as interface redesign.
• At the beginning of 2021, we will release the Wialon Help center, a new tool that will combine all the useful and necessary information for working with the platform.
• We will keep on adding more solutions to the Wialon-based solutions marketplace, so don’t hesitate to send your developments if you haven't done it yet.
• We will work on flagship applications, as well as the video functionality that will provide for video streams now when Flash Player is disabled.

As you can see, the difficulties of the past year have not broken us but tempered us instead. Despite everything, you kept connecting new units to Wialon, working on various solutions, meeting (even if only online) with the community, and sharing your experience.

We are grateful to all Wialon partners for your resilience and hard work in 2020. You are amazing. Thanks to you, Gurtam and Wialon evolve, become better, and help thousands of businesses around the world strive for success.