Ford has big goals for software sales to small business truck fleets

investing.com:

By Joseph White

DETROIT (Reuters) — HomeTown Services, a heating and cooling repair company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is getting ready to install driver monitoring cameras in some of its trucks, and already uses streamed data to remind drivers not to sit too long in idle vehicles, wasting gasoline.

«People will sit in a vehicle for an hour or two,» said Del Underwood, vice president for purchasing and fleets for the company. Now, technicians get a text message instructing them to either turn off their trucks or move to the next assignment.

That may annoy some employees, but it is good news for Ford Motor (NYSE:F) Co's commercial vehicle unit, Ford Pro, which has placed a big bet on software-related services. Ford Pro hopes selling connected-vehicle services such as driver monitoring systems to small and medium sized fleet operators will help generate as much as $1.8 billion in annual profit within two years.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has urged investors to think of Ford Pro's bundle of software and vehicle sales, not Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), as the «future of the automotive industry.»

Companies including Geotab and units of Verizon (NYSE:VZ) dominate the market for telematics services provided to large vehicle fleets, said Mike Ramsey, vice president at technology consultancy Gartner (NYSE:IT).

But Ford «can get all the guys buying Ford Transits for their plumbing business,» Ramsey said.

Small and medium-sized business fleets in North America and Europe constitute a large enough market that Farley has told investors Ford Pro could earn 20% of its pre-tax profit from selling software and services within two years.

Farley has forecast Ford Pro pre-tax profits at $8 billion to $9 billion this year. He has promised investors Pro can earn