I don’t know what all of it means, but it sure sounds good for SNCR.
Saul
BRIDGEWATER, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNCR), the leading innovator of cloud solutions and software-based activation for mobile carriers, enterprises, retailers and OEMs worldwide, today announced a new partnership with General Motors’ OnStar. OnStar will use Synchronoss’ Integrated Life platform to facilitate merchant transactions and cloud intelligence to expand the features, and contextual relevance of the OnStar AtYourService commerce and marketing platform.
OnStar AtYourService is a platform which drives the digital engagement between drivers and physical merchants, creating personalized and relevant connections between where a subscriber goes and what they do. This service first launched in early 2015 and is part of its wider suite of OnStar connected car services and features.
Synchronoss’ Integrated Life platform will be established as the interaction hub for merchants who will supply new and exciting value propositions to OnStar customers. OnStar will use the Synchronoss Integrated Life platform to deliver innovative and accurate context-based in-car offers and services to subscribers from leading brands and merchants via OnStar AtYourService. Examples include mobile pre-ordering and payment in advance of reaching a destination; as well as automatic activations for convenient “pay-and-go” services at the fuel pump.
“Our partnership with Synchronoss gives us important new connectivity capabilities to expand the range of features available via our OnStar AtYourService platform that we would not have been able to implement otherwise,” said Mark Lloyd, Consumer Online Officer for OnStar. “Using the Synchronoss Integrated Life platform as a foundation, our two companies can deliver more effective and intelligent engagement between physical merchants and our customers, and create new and lucrative mobile commerce opportunities, while delivering great value to our drivers.”…
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GM is also investing $500M in Lyft (competitor to Uber). Lyft just raised $1B in a private round (so it looks like GM put up 50% of this round). Lyft has a valuation of over $5B.
Chris
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OnStar AtYourService is a platform which drives the digital engagement between drivers and physical merchants, creating personalized and relevant connections between where a subscriber goes and what they do. This service first launched in early 2015 and is part of its wider suite of OnStar connected car services and features.
I think this means as you drive by Best Buy a coupon will pop up for a discount on a washing machine.
convenient “pay-and-go” services at the fuel pump
So instead of swiping your phone, you can swipe your car! If they integrate it with toll booths you might have something.
Hey Millennials, does this sound like something you would use in a car?
Synchronoss’ Integrated Life platform will be established as the interaction hub for merchants who will supply new and exciting value propositions to OnStar customers.
To paraphrase a joke from the movie Airplane!, “Yes, I speak hi-tech corporate hype!”
This is apparently yet another attempt to monetize automobile connectivity. It’s probably based on the thinking since people buy apps for their phones and tablets, they will also buy apps for their car.
…deliver…context-based in-car offers and services to subscribers from leading brands and merchants via OnStar AtYourService
This is not only not a big deal, it’s doomed to failure. Automakers have been trying to get owners to pay for connectivity or apps, with very poor results. People don’t want to pay another $10/month after spending thousands on a car. People don’t want a slew of apps with different user interfaces from each other on their car’s screen - they want driving related functionality that’s integrated and easy to use.
I know Synchronoss is trying to be some kind of single platform across all the devices a person owns (smartphone, tablet, laptop, smarTV and car), but I don’t see that as a strategy that will be successful. It’s not the delivery platform that matters, it’s the content.
For instance, as an Amazon Prime member I get to watch some movies and TV shows for “free.” The Amazon Video iPhone app has this really cool feature that enables me to download Prime movies to my phone for later watching, even if not connected. This is cool - I watched a movie on the airplane to CES this afternoon. But the flight was only 90 minutes, so I didn’t get to finish the movie. And just now, in my hotel room, I fired up Amazon on my laptop thru the hotel’s free WiFi and was able to finish the movie. And Amazon knew right where I had left off on the phone and was able to resume from there on the laptop. That’s an integrated experience, and that has to do with Amazon as a content provider, not some cloud infrastructure or device activation thing.
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