In a shift to robots on the ground, Verizon Wireless has told its customers that it is ending the operations of Skyward drone services in the coming weeks. Skyward provided drone operations management software for airspace access, safe workflows, and compliance, as well as consulting.
“This was not an easy decision,” Verizon told its customers in an email. “The Verizon Robotics team will be focusing our efforts on ground robot management, connectivity services, and solution development.”
Verizon purchased Skyward in 2017, which was hailed by Drone Life at the time as a “major move” for the drone company that showed the growth and maturity of the drone industry. It brought drones operations management into Verizon’s IoT portfolio, which gave drone managers operational oversight of their drone programs. The InFlight Mobile App was used by pilots in the field to plan their missions. The mapping and modeling software enabled customers to process drone data into 2D orthomosaics and 3D models.
Josh Ziering, Founder and CTO, Aloft.io, said he was “extremely disheartened” to learn of Skyward’s demise even though he was a competitor. “The drone industry needs competition and from that competition, comes innovation,” he wrote. “It’s been a challenging year for the drone industry as we’ve seen once-dominant Airmap get acquired by a drone services startup [DroneUp].”
Instead of drones, Verizon has decided to focus on terrestrial robots. In July of last year, Verizon formed Robotics Business Technology, which included Skyward; incubed IT, a developer of software for autonomous mobile robots; and a team focused on automating command and control of robots on Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network.
When Verizon announced it would cease operations of Skyward at the end of June, no one celebrated, but plenty of companies made it clear on LinkedIn that they would be interested in hiring anyone laid off from the company.
“Cyberhawk is growing and looking for talented people to join,” wrote Chris Fleming, CEO, Cyberhawk.
Others, quite frankly, were ready to take on Skyward’s former customers. “We have been approached by companies telling us they need a replacement for Skyward and they are in search of a new compliance/fleet management platform so we would like to invite those looking for a replacement to reach out to us,” wrote DroneLogbook.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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