Sierra Wireless was founded in 1993 in Vancouver, Canada. In August 2003, it completed an acquisition of privately held, high-speed CDMA wireless modules supplier, AirPrime, issuing approximately 3.7 million shares to AirPrime shareholders. On March 6, 2007, the company announced its purchase of Hayward, California-based AirLink Communications, a privately held developer of high-value fixed, portable, and mobile wireless data solutions. Prior to the May 2007 completion of its sale to Sierra Wireless for a total of $27 million in cash and stock, AirLink had reported $24.8 million in revenues and gross margin of 44 percent. On August 5, 2008, Sierra Wireless announced its purchase of the assets of Junxion, a Seattle based producer of Linux-based mobile wireless access points and network routers for enterprise and government customers. Terms of the acquisition were not made public. In December 2008, Sierra Wireless made a friendly all-cash bid to acquire Wavecom, a French M2M wireless technology developer. The sale was completed for $275 million. On August 1, 2012, the company announced it had completed its acquisition of SAGEMCOM's M2M business in a cash transaction of EUR44.9 million plus assumed liabilities. In November 2012, Sierra Wireless was recognized as an M2M market leader by market research and intelligence firm, ABI Research. Based on the company's aggregated revenues, ABI found that Sierra Wireless held a 34 percent share of the M2M module market. On January 28, 2013, it was announced that Sierra Wireless had entered a definitive agreement to sell all assets and operations related to its AirCard business to NETGEAR, Inc. for $138 million in cash plus approximately $6.5 million in assumed liabilities as of December 31, 2012. On April 3rd, 2017, Sierra Wireless announced its acquisition of GlobalTop Technology'sGNSS embedded modules business for $3.2 million. In April 2020, Sierra Wireless appointed Samuel Cochrane as Chief Financial Officer.
Patents and technology
Sierra Wireless has been granted more than 550 unique patents for an array of technologies ranging from built-in antennas and product form factors, to battery power usage and management and network efficiency improvements. The company currently has patents pending in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia, Mexico, and South Africa.
Products
Sierra Wireless offers products and solutions in four primary areas:
AirLink, wireless gateways used in industrial, enterprise, and automotive applications. AirLink intelligent gateways and routers use embedded intelligence and the ALEOS Application Framework to support remote management, control, and configuration, and application services for vertical market solutions.
AirPrime, embedded modules providing cellular connectivity for wireless mobile computing and M2M often used by device manufacturers to bring new 2G - 4G, GSM, and CDMA devices to market via PCI Express MiniCards, surface-mount modules, modem-only functionality, and programmable devices.
AirVantage, a cloud-based application facilitating M2M service delivery consisting of the AirVantage Management Service M2M device management application, and AirVantage Enterprise Platform for collecting, sharing, and integration of machine data using API standards, as well as development and deployment of M2M applications.
SAGEMCOMGSM-R terminals, wireless devices used in railway communications and applications.
Until the 2013 sale of all assets and operations, Sierra Wireless also manufactured and marketed AirCard, mobile broadband devices permitting users to connect notebooks, netbooks, and other electronics to the Internet over 3G and 4G mobile broadband networks via PC or express card slots, USB ports, or mobile WiFi hotspots.
Community support
Sierra Wireless is an active United Way of the Lower Mainland supporter. For its efforts, the company was recognized with United Way Employee Gold Awards and a 2002 Award of Excellence. In 2003, Canadian public universitySimon Fraser University announced the creation of the Sierra Wireless Chair in Wireless Communication, which was funded through annual donations for a three-year period. Upon completion of the original three-year term, the company extended its partnership with the university by establishing an endowed Sierra Wireless Professorship in Mobile Communication. In partnership with the university's School of Engineering Science in the Faculty of Applied Sciences, the Sierra Wireless Mobile Communications Laboratory was opened in November 2012.
