BOULDER, CO – David Wangler wants his customers to know it’s what’s inside the truck that counts.

The president of Trimble Transportation Enterprise said on Thursday morning the company’s acquisition of 10-4 Systems, announced Sept. 13, would allow Trimble to make better connections to the shipping community, and give them the technology to track, “the freight, not the truck.”

Wangler says the Colorado based company has products that give visibility to freight, especially freight traveling by several modalities, allowing shippers and carriers to track it in real time, from beginning to end.

Shippers have always desired this complete visibility, and the technologies have finally come to bare, said Wangler.

Travis Rhyan, 10-4’s president and CEO, says the company has had success in the food and beverage industry because of the high possibility of spoilage in the product. Shippers and carriers in the space depend on accurate and timely information.

When the company was started in 2012 with just 50 employees, Rhyan said many technologies focused on the needs of brokers or carriers.

“We took a much different focus in really making the shipper our core customer,” he said. “We know the heartbeat of the carrier tracking the freight, and not just the hand of the truck.”

Wangler says the newly acquired technology will also allow Trimble to better serve those customers who are used to tracking freight from beginning to end through emails and text alerts from large companies in the ecommerce space.

“All of our users go home and they become consumers,” he said. “They don’t like to go look for information. They like information to be presented to them.”

Alerts from 10-4’s products can be sent to everyone in the network, from shippers to dock workers for complete and accurate information on when the product will arrive.

While neither company is revealing the terms of the deal, including purchase price, Rhyan said all the employees at 10-4 will continue to remain employed in the Boulder office, where 10-4 will continue to operate.

Wangler says Trimble has had great success acquiring companies – like 10-4 and another subsidiary, PeopleNet – and allowing them to continue to operate with some independence, instead of being absorbed by the larger company. He hopes that success will repeat itself here, but says he is looking forward to working on new products with the 10-4 team.

Rhyan said the staff at 10-4 were equally excited about the move, and were looking forward to the future as part of the Trimble group.

Wangler was cagey about what products are upcoming, but said the move was obviously a strategic one for them, and that they had a vision to create more tools in the shipping and freight tracking space.

For now, they are focused on reaching out to customers who have been demanding the kinds of applications that 10-4 offers.

“TMS was not built for that end user. Now not only do they know where that truck is, but what’s on it, what got shipped, where that came from, and if there are other orders tied to it,” Wangler said.