April/May 2007

Siemens VDO Automotive has sold its main UK vehicle tracking and fleet management businesses to Control Instruments group, a global telematics, fleet management and on-board computer specialist based in South Africa.

Products involved include Siemens' Datatrak, Fleet Telematics and One Stop Shop businesses.

CI Omnibridge, the division looking after this type of business, is to set up a UK subsidiary, CI OmniBridge Ltd, which will take on 80 UK staff from Siemens and will become its European head office. It is also to open a branch office in Germany, staffed by key former Siemens VDO employees.

In a separate element of the deal between the two organisations, CI Omnibridge is also taking over exclusive worldwide distribution of Siemens VDO's Fleet Manager product range, which includes a variety of on-board hardware such as 'black box' data recording and tracking systems and on-board computers. Behind the scenes, CI has in fact been developing and producing these products for Siemens for the past ten years, so in effect it is taking control of its own product line.