Just two years after acquiring Kuebix in a $200 million deal, Trimble said it will shut down the transportation management system provider.
Kuebix will be entirely shuttered by the end of 2025 as Trimble pivots to Engage Lane, a recently launched transportation procurement platform, company officials said.
“We are pivoting our strategy to support shippers through Engage Lane, and we believe the Kuebix team will be an invaluable resource in helping us to deliver on our broader cloud-first strategy,” Michael Leyba, Trimble’s senior director of investor relations, told FreightWaves. “While we will no longer sell or develop enhancements to our Kuebix TMS product, we will continue to support and maintain the Kuebix TMS for existing customers for up to the next 36 months (with full sunset in 2025), with exceptions for customers with longer-term contracts.”
Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) is a Sunnyvale, California-based supply chain technology provider for trucking companies, freight brokerages and 3PLs. Trimble’s transportation division provides services such as enterprise, mobility, final-mile, mapping and maintenance solutions.
Trimble launched Engage Lane earlier this year. The company aims to transition Kuebix clients to the new platform, which is a transportation procurement operating system that assists both carriers and shippers in the bidding process and workflow for loads.
“Engage Lane has established significant momentum, and we expect many Kuebix clients to adopt it accordingly,” Leyba said.
Leyba declined to answer specific questions about Kuebix’s performance since Trimble acquired the TMS provider in January 2020 or how many Kuebix employees will be laid off.
“At this time, it would be extremely difficult to make any predictions regarding any future reductions or actions as we pivot,” Leyba said.
Kuebix had about 100 employees before the acquisition. Some employees have posted about unexpectedly being laid off on LinkedIn. One posted on Saturday, “I was informed that the entire division of Trimble that I work for, Kuebix, will be shutting down next month.”
Kuebix was founded in 2008 by Dan Clark in Maynard, Massachusetts. Trimble acquired Kuebix with the aim of connecting the company’s carrier clients, representing about 1.3 million trucks, to Kuebix’s network of more than 21,000 shipping companies.
The ultimate goal of the Kuebix acquisition was network integration, Trimble officials said.
In a 2020 interview with FreightWaves, Trimble Senior Vice President James Langley said the acquisition of Kuebix “certainly leapfrogs us ahead” in the race to build even more integrated systems that bring together carriers, shippers and other intermediate parties in the supply chain.
Watch: Short haul freight volumes outpacing mid-haul freight volumes.
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