Lantronix Stock

Lantronix, Inc. (Lantronix) operates as a global industrial and enterprise internet of things (IoT) provider of solutions that target diversified verticals ranging from smart cities, utilities and healthcare to enterprise, intelligent transportation, and industrial automation.

The company’s target applications include video surveillance, traffic management, infotainment systems, robotics, edge computing, and remote environment management (REM).

The company’s portfolio of services and products address each layer of the IoT Stack, including Collect, Connect, Compute, Control and Comprehend, enabling the company’s customers to deploy successful IoT and REM solutions. The company’s services and products deliver a holistic approach, addressing its customers’ needs by integrating a SaaS management platform with custom application development layered on top of external and embedded hardware, enabling intelligent edge computing, secure communications (wired, Wi-Fi, and cellular), location and positional tracking, and environmental sensing and reporting.

The company organizes its portfolio services and products into the following product lines: Embedded IoT Modules, IoT Systems Solutions, and Software and Engineering Services.

In 2021, the company acquired the Transition Networks and Net2 Edge businesses (the ‘TN Companies’) from Communication Systems, Inc. The TN Companies provide the company with complementary IoT connectivity products and capabilities, including switching, power over ethernet and media conversion and adapter products.

Strategy

The company is executing a growth strategy that includes continuous innovation complemented by strategic acquisitions to expand its ability to offer complete IoT and REM solutions with the intent of increasing its scale and broadening its scope so that the company can increase its value proposition to its customers.

Products and Solutions

Embedded IoT Modules

This portfolio of embedded products provides a variety of solutions, including Compute System-on-Module (SOM) or System-in-Package (SIP) solutions supplemented with wired and wireless network Connectivity options. As the level of silicon integration continues to grow, the compute modules also provide the ability to Collect digital information (Video, Audio or Sensors) and analyze/comprehend the data streams based on specific AI/ML algorithms. The new implementations of SIP devices can process multiple media streams with CV (Computer Vision) technology and the modules can be Controlled remotely via ConsoleFlow, Lantronix’s Cloud SaaS platform.

The company’s IoT compute products typically are embedded into a customer product, enabling advanced application functionality at the edge. Its compute products are normally embedded into new designs. These products include application processing that delivers compute to meet customer needs for data transformation, computer vision, machine learning, augmented / virtual reality, audio / video aggregation and distribution, and custom applications at the edge. Many of the products are offered with software tools intended to further accelerate its customers’ time-to-market and increase their value add. Most of the company’s IoT embedded products are pre-certified in a number of countries thereby significantly reducing its OEM customers’ regulatory certification costs and accelerating their time to market.

The following product families are included in the company’s Embedded IoT Solutions product line: XPort, XPort Pro, WiPort, System on Module (SoM), Single Board Computer (SBC), Development Kits, MicroM110, xPico, xPico Wi-Fi, NICS, Optical SFPs, PremierWave EN, and PremierWave XC.

IoT System Solutions

The IoT Systems Solutions portfolio consists of fully functional standalone systems that provider routing, switching or gateway functionalities, as well as Telematics and media conversion. These products include wired and wireless connections that enhance the value and utility of modern electronic systems and equipment by providing secure network connectivity, power for IoT end devices through Power over Ethernet (PoE), application hosting, protocol conversion, media conversion, secure access for distributed IoT deployments and many other functions. Most of the company’s IoT System products are pre-certified in a number of countries thereby significantly reducing the company’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers’ regulatory certification costs and accelerating their time to market.

The company’s PoE products support remote devices, such as cameras and wireless access points by passing electrical power along with data on Ethernet cabling, eliminating the need for traditional AC/DC electrical power in hard-to-reach locations. As more cities move to implement smart city technology, a major component will be solutions designed to protect and provide services to citizens, such as intelligent transportation and surveillance networks. The company’s switches deliver the necessary connectivity, bandwidth and power to enable these solutions. Many of the company’s products incorporate features to perform advanced levels of fault management and diagnostics to troubleshoot networks and proactively fix problems. The company’s media converters and other customer premise equipment (CPE) assist customers in resolving challenges in the areas of bandwidth constraints, security risks, and distance limitations as networks extend from local area to wide area networks and adapt to ever increasing end-user demands.

The company’s smart tracking devices are designed to deliver robust data logging and positional tracking functionality and reliability for supply chain and logistics solutions. The company’s telematics devices are designed to be flexible in the field and offer a variety of connectivity options to suit the customers’ needs across 3G, 4G, and LTE cellular networks. These power efficient products are designed to support communications across interfaces and industrial protocols for vehicle, fleet, and asset tracking and management. Many of the products are offered with software tools intended to further accelerate the company’s customers’ time-to-market and increase their value add. Most of the company’s IoT Telematics products are pre-certified in a number of countries thereby significantly reducing the company’s OEM customers’ regulatory certification costs and accelerating their time to market.

As Edge Computing deployment accelerates, REM allows for full comprehension and control of a remote IT infrastructure, across a range of sensors (temperature, humidity, light, acceleration, open / close, etc.) providing status and alerting, automation, and remote control of devices and end stations. REM designs may be part of an out of band (OOB) or in band network design. OOB is a technique that uses a dedicated management network to access critical infrastructure components to ensure production independent management connectivity. REM allows organizations to effectively monitor, manage, and control their enterprise IT equipment and facilities (environments), either in or out of band, optimizing their IT support resources.

The company’s REM product line includes out-of-band management, console management, power management, and IP connected keyboard-video-mouse (commonly referred to as ‘IPKVM’) products that provide remote access to IT and networking infrastructure deployed in test labs, data centers, branch offices, remote sites, and server rooms.

The following product families are included in IoT System Solutions product line: EDS, EDS-MD, xPress, xDirect, E21x, E22x, G52x, X30x, Bolero4x, FOX3-4G, FOX4, SGX, SLB, SLC8000, Spider, UDS, EMG. S40 and Power over Ethernet Switches. In addition, the company offers non-PoE Network Switches and Media Converters.

Software and Engineering Services

The company’s SaaS platform provides single pane of glass management for REM and IoT deployments. The company’s platform enables customers to easily deploy, monitor, manage, and automate across their global deployments, all from a single platform login, virtually connected as though directly on each device. The company’s platform eliminates the need to have 24/7 personnel on site, and makes it easy to see and drill into an issue quickly, even in large scale deployments.

OEMs and SIs can leverage the company’s platform multitenancy functionality for supporting a wide customer base while ensuring customer separation. Over the Air (OTA) updates make it easy to ensure the latest security patches, firmware, and configurations are deployed and functional.

The company leverages its engineering expertise and product development best practices to deliver high quality, innovative products, cost-effectively and on time.

The company’s engineering services flexible business model allows for choosing turnkey product development or team augmentation for accelerating complex areas of product development, such as camera development and tuning, voice control, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, augmented / virtual reality, mechanical and radio-frequency design, thermal and power optimization, or in any specific area a customer needs assistance.

In addition to the company’s production-ready edge computing solutions, it offers experienced multidisciplinary engineering services across complete aspects of IoT product development, including hardware engineering, software engineering, mechanical engineering, rapid prototyping, and quality assurance. The company also offers services for mechanical, hardware, and software engineering for camera, audio, and artificial intelligence / machine learning development.

The following product families are included in the company’s Software & Services product line: Engineering Services, ConsoleFlow, Level Services and J-Integra.

Sales Cycle

The company’s embedded IoT solutions are typically designed into products by OEMs, original design manufacturers (ODMs) and contract manufacturers. OEMs design and sell products under their own brand that are either manufactured by the OEM in-house or by third-party contract manufacturers. ODMs design and manufacture products for third parties, which then sell those products under the third parties’ brands. The design cycles using the company’s embedded solutions typically range from nine to 24 months and can generate revenue for the entire life cycle of an end user’s product.

The company’s IoT System Solutions are typically sold to end users through value added resellers (VARs) systems integrators, distributors, online retailers, and to a lesser extent, OEMs. The design cycles for these products typically range from three to 18 months and are often project-based.

Sales Channels

Distributors

A majority of the company’s sales are made through distributors. Distributors resell the company’s products to a wide variety of resellers and end customers, including OEMs, ODMs, value-added resellers (VARs), systems integrators, consumers, online retailers, IT resellers, corporate customers, and government entities.

Resellers

The company’s products are sold by industry-specific system integrators and VARs, who often obtain its products from its distributors. Additionally, the company’s products are sold by direct market resellers, such as CDW, ProVantage, and Amazon.com.

Direct Sales

To a lesser extent, the company sells products directly to larger OEMs and end users. The company also maintains an ecommerce site for direct sales.

Sales and Marketing

The company sells its products primarily through an internal sales force, which includes regional sales managers, inside sales personnel and field applications engineers in major regions throughout the world. This team manages the company’s relationships with its partners and end users, identifies and develops new sales opportunities and increases penetration at existing accounts. The company implements marketing programs, tools and services, including displaying its products at industry-specific events, to generate sales leads and increase demand for the company’s products.

Manufacturing

The company’s manufacturing operations are primarily conducted through four third-party contract manufacturers. The company utilizes Hana Microelectronics, primarily located in Thailand and China; Honortone, primarily located in China; Ruby Tech in Taiwan; and Tailyn in China as the company’s contract manufacturers for most of its products. In addition, it uses Inphi Corporation to manage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd., a third-party foundry located in Taiwan, which manufactures the company’s large-scale integration chips.

Customer and Geographic Concentrations

The company conducts its business globally and manages its sales teams by three geographic regions: the Americas; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ).

History

Lantronix, Inc. was founded in 1989. The company was incorporated in California in 1989 and re-incorporated in the state of Delaware in 2000.