Advanced telematic services continue to take shape in precision farming as suppliers partner to integrate and deliver data sharing platforms through their dealer networks.

Continuing the trend, Case IH and Trimble announced this week a wireless data sharing partnership enabling wireless connectivity between Trimble’s ag software and Case IH Advanced Farming Systems (AFS) Connect and New Holland Precision Land Management (PLM) Connect telematics platforms in North America.

According to Brian Stark, marketing communications manager for Trimble Ag Software, the collaboration will allow farmers with mixed fleets of equipment to wirelessly transfer task data, planting, fertilization and yield maps or guidance lines from third party displays into Trimble’s ag software platform.

So what will the partnership mean for dealers? We caught up with Stark at this week’s InfoAg event in St. Louis to discuss the opportunity and impact the integration will have on the company’s retailers.

“It will streamline things a lot better for them because what happens is you eliminate the USB drive. So a lot of dealers are still downloading data from these displays via USB and anyone who has done that process knows it takes a long time to extract data from a USB. So a dealership will really thrive on this because, hey, they are supporting all kinds of displays out in the field. So that API, all they have to do is set up a Trimble account, set up the API wireless flow and hit a button.”

Telematic services continue to be an evolving source of revenue for dealers, and looking at data from the 2017 Precision Farming Dealer benchmark study, nearly 59% of respondents said they offer remote service to farm customers and 51% viewed data management services as the most important source of precision revenue growth during the next 5 years.