Will existing imp006 cellular devices fail to work after 2028 due to KORE lack of commitment beyond said date?

[PaulM]

I wanted to use EI imp006 for a long-term decades-long sensor network. I already committed to the platform. I love the the product, but was upset at the lack of information and acknowledgement on here (on EI’s part) about the transition from Twilio to KORE. We’ve now had two major transitions and a lack of communication on EI’s part to assure prospective clients that this is indeed a platform as future-proof as building an ATM, subway/airport kiosk, etc with an embedded LTE modem and doing the network integration yourself.

Can @hugo or someone with authority provide reassurance that deployed EI imp006-based connected devices won’t have to be physically replaced with something totally different in 5 mere years, in light of the following email I just received from KORE? 5 years is a very short time in terms of deploying embedded tactical-grade mission-critical LTE-connected field devices.

Dear Electric Imp Customer,

First, I want to thank you for your patience during the transition from Twilio to KORE. We value your business, and we look forward to continuing the great partnership we’ve had to date. To that end, we would like to clarify the support that we intend to give you on the Electric Imp platform.

At KORE, we understand the trust you place in us to provide a long-lived platform as the devices you deploy can be in the field for many years. We want to maintain that trust so we confirm that we intend to keep the Electric Imp platform in service until at least the end of 2028.

As the next question will be, what does that mean exactly, please allow us to highlight the main components:

• We are expanding the team dedicated to support the Electric Imp platform and product. We expect to have the expanded team in place and trained by the end of the first quarter of 2024. This will increase the responsiveness to support tickets and ensure we have a flexible team to keep the platform reliable. We will also have a product manager who will have responsibility for the platform.
• Imp005, Imp004, Imp003 (and other variants) are considered feature-complete as of release-42. No further feature development will be considered for these. We do not recommend building new designs on these and many of the parts needed for these are already NRND. The existing code for these will be maintained with any security patches or bug fixes that are identified.
• Any new hardware designs should be made on the Imp006 platform. Imp006 is not considered feature complete, however we will not be proactively building a roadmap for Imp006 and we will instead take requests for features and evaluate them against total customer demand and market needs. Our assigned product manager will drive the prioritization for these features.

As you probably know, we have shifted most of our future focus to building our Microvisor platform and believe there are advantages to using this in any new designs. We would be more than happy to schedule time to discuss the merits and tradeoffs of moving to this platform long term.

That said, we know support for Electric Imp platform is top of mind for you and hope that this communication is helpful as you plan and continue to build your business. If you have any follow up questions, please let us know.

Best Regards, ​
​Romil

Romil Bahl
KORE | CEO

[hugo]

I’m afraid I’ve not been involved since leaving Twilio early last year; I would recommend you reach out to KORE management and push for assurances that can give you the confidence you require.

I don’t believe KORE have a lot of experience with the expectations that platform users have of anything more than SIM connectivity. Like, you can swap a SIM in the field (at great expense, but it can be done), but moving to a new OS/cloud environment is much, much harder - harder even than moving to a new generation of radio modules when LTE goes away. Microvisor is not a drop-in replacement for any imp customer, and neither are any other platform offerings from any vendor.

Some larger imp customers have enquired about taking over maintenance of the entire public cloud platform (in a similar way to the private cloud instances of the imp platform deployed by Eaton and Pitney Bowes) but I’m not aware of any progress on that front at this point.

I know that the remaining team members have been doing their best to educate KORE on these subjects, but there’s no substitute for customers expressing their concerns direct to management!