Moline, Ill.-based John Deere Construction & Forestry Co., Qualcomm Inc. announced an alliance to create an equipment and machine monitoring and information delivery system that will be sold across North America by certified John Deere construction and forestry dealers. Beginning in the fall of 2006, customers can order factory- or dealer-installed JDLink on select John Deere construction and forestry equipment.

JDLink automatically collects, transmits and manages information about where and how construction and forestry equipment is being used, as well as critical machine health data for superior equipment utilization, improved productivity and increased revenue. The system leverages Qualcomm's GlobalTracs equipment management system to provide customers with vital information about equipment location, machine health and service status. Additionally, it issues special alerts to notify customers if equipment moves outside pre-set boundaries.

“Having this real-time information system will enable customers to save time and costs, maximize their equipment utilization and uptime, and improve their overall service,” said Ken Poppe, product marketing manager, advanced technology for John Deere Construction & Forestry.

Four levels of service will be offered with JDLink. The Standard level will provide owners with machine location status, machine service hours and location monitoring capabilities. The Advanced level of service will provide customers with the Standard level, plus dash indicators and fuel and equipment utilization information via engine load monitoring. The Ultimate level of service expands upon these offerings by adding current and stored monitoring of component pressures and temperatures, fuel consumption, as well as transmission gear selection and full-featured diagnostic information retrieval. The Direct level enables customers to download machine operating history and diagnostics directly to a laptop. The Advanced, Ultimate and Direct levels of service will be available in 2007 on select models of John Deere construction and forestry equipment; the Standard level of service will be available in the fall of 2006.

“Through this alliance, Qualcomm and John Deere are creating an innovative solution that will advance the forestry and construction industries to a new level of operational intelligence,” said Larry Cleary, vice president and general manager of construction equipment for Qualcomm Wireless Business Solutions.

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