InnerWireless, PanGo Networks merge
InnerWireless and PanGo Networks yesterday announced a merger of the two companies that will combine the in-building coverage and location infrastructure of InnerWireless with PanGo’s location-service software platform to provide enterprises with an end-to-end asset-tracking solution.
Although the combined company will use the InnerWireless brand and the InnerWireless headquarters in Richardson, Texas, PanGo operations—located outside of Boston in Framingham, Mass.—will continue with vitually none of the 110 combined employees expected to uprooted, said Michael Campbell, PanGo’s co-founder and senior vice president for location services in the new InnerWireless.
“It was purely a merger of two private companies; no cash exchanged hands whatsoever,” Campbell said in an interview with MRT. “It was two companies that had the foresight to recognize that we had very complementary technologies and a very common set of customer values and target markets.”
Campbell said PanGo and InnerWireless began discussing a partnership more than a year ago before pursuing talks for a merger, which closed last week. Combining the companies makes sense because InnerWireless’ infrastructure and room-level “Spot” asset tracker and PanGo’s asset-tracking software applications are complementary, he said.
“What InnerWireless can bring to the market as a result of merging these two companies is an end-to-end solution, from the infrastructure all the way up the stack to an asset-tracking application,” Campbell said.
In addition, the PanGo applications work on a middleware platform that can integrate the location information into existing applications, Campbell said.
“So, we don’t make admissions/discharge transport [ADT] systems, we make them location-aware. We don’t make asset-management systems, we make them location-aware,” he said. “For a hospital that’s already invested in an ADT system, it can now track the location of transporters, wheelchairs, stretchers and other equipment by integrating the InnerWireless middleware solution.”
Between the two companies, InnerWireless and PanGo already count about 80 hospitals as customers. Although location services can be applied in other industries, healthcare will remain a near-term focus for InnerWireless because of its need for the solution, Campbell said.
“One hospital executive said to me years ago, ’80 percent of anything of value in my hospital either has two legs or four wheels, and they’re constantly in motion. So the most important assets are mobile assets, and not knowing where they are … is a very expensive problem for us,’” Campbell said.
