Many are still in doubt of Amazon.com Inc.’s meandering drone plans. Meanwhile, a much smaller company called Airware Inc. has taken off with enterprise drone analytics.

“You’re seeing a huge uptake in what drones can do,” said Yvonne Wassenaar (pictured), chief executive officer of Airware.

A few years ago, an Airware customer could not find a drone to collect visual imagery. The customer had to duct-tape a cell phone to a drone’s underside to record visuals. Now, powerful drones with built-in image capture are available from companies like DJI Innovations Science and Technology Co. Ltd., she stated.

Airware enables speedy analytics on the data these drones collect, Wassenaar said in an interview at Accenture Labs 30th Anniversary Celebration in Mountain View, California. Insurance, agriculture, mining and construction are some industries using Airware, she told John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio.

Rooftop inspectors can now fly a drone up to the site of inspection and collect information they need; it is quicker and safer than climbing a ladder and eyeballing it, said Wassenaar. Employees at large quarry sites also use Airware.

Geospatial coordinates are key to performing precise analytics. Airware aligns images to specific geospatial sites with ground control points. “We know exactly — to the pin-point — how to stitch information together, how to relate images over time,” Wassenaar said. The bigger challenge is processing very large data volume from vast quarries and the like.

Flying the friendly skies with cloud compute

While Wassenaar declined to reveal exactly how Airware ingests and analyzes data over airwaves, she said that cloud computing is a major enabler. “The magic is really in marrying the different data sources,” she stated.

Airware’s progress here would likely not be what it is today without cloud, she added.

Airware sells primarily to insurance, mining and construction industries. However, it is working to build a platform that can be leveraged across industries.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Accenture Labs 30th Anniversary Celebration.

Photo: SiliconANGLE