Panasonic Connect North America has launched Tough Command, a connected fleet management platform that turns its rugged Toughbook in-vehicle laptops into a data hub for fleet operators. The product targets public safety, utility and enterprise fleet customers, where Panasonic says many operators bolt on extra hardware and software to extract data from existing devices. The platform takes a software-first approach, using the compute, connectivity and GPS already in deployed Toughbook laptops rather than requiring new in-vehicle hardware. Tough Command acts as a secure edge-to-cloud gateway, pulling data from vehicles, IoT devices and infrastructure into a cloud environment for analytics and reporting. It supports mixed-device fleets and is vendor-agnostic on hardware. In a statement, Mike Smola, Senior Director, Product Management and System Engineering/QA at Panasonic Connect, said: “By turning TOUGHBOOK into a single, scalable platform for data capture, integration, and insight, we’re helping customers reduce complexity, consolidate hardware, and build a more efficient and safer foundation for their operations.” Launch capabilities include edge data collection from in-vehicle devices and connected equipment, cloud storage and analytics for vehicle health and routes, a web-based dashboard, and configurable reporting. Panasonic is positioning Tough Command as a way to consolidate siloed systems and reduce the number of vendors and data services fleet operators rely on. Source: Panasonic Connect