IBM, ARM Form Alliance to Simplify the Integration of IoT

IBM and ARM just announced the formation of an alliance that will make it much easier for developers who are building products that use ARM’s mbed operating system to link their devices to IBM’s specially designed cloud for the Internet of Things, reported our sister site, The VAR Guy.

This is specifically appealing for companies that want to build connected products but don't want to have to worry about a proprietary operating system. The mbed OS, currently only available in beta versions, is designed to run on small microcontrollers that are used in sensors and embedded devices such as appliances or even medical monitors. It

The new alliance will provide access to software development kits (SDKs) that make it simpler to invoke application programming interfaces (APIs) to build IoT applications, Chris O’Conner, general manager of the IoT business unit at IBM, told The VAR Guy. In the case of IBM, those APIs will connect back to IBM IoT Foundation, a cloud service managed by IBM based on the IBM Bluemix platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environment running on the IBM SoftLayer Cloud.

O’Connor said IBM is making a concerted effort to reduce the barrier to entry when it comes to building IoT solutions. By combining access to back-end services via open APIs with ubiquitous connectivity over the Internet, just about any organization can now build an IoT application, he noted.

In fact, he added, there is a growing massive realization among business executives regarding the potential impact of IoT. As a result, IBM is seeing a massive spike in interest in IoT solutions. For that reason, IBM today also announced it has collaborated with ARM to create IoT for Electronics, which is an instance of IBM IoT Foundation aimed specifically at the electronics industry.

Considering that International Data Corp. (IDC) expects the IoT industry to increase to $1.7 trillion by 2020 from $655.9 billion last year, the companies couldn’t have picked a better time to expand their presence in the IoT arena.

Making up the bulk of the growth in the IoT market will be devices, connectivity and IT services, according to the research firm. Combined, they will amount to more than 66 percent of the worldwide IoT market by 2020, the research firm said. Platforms, application software and service models will be a large part of that revenue.

To learn more about both new IoT projects, read the complete post at: http://thevarguy.com/business-technology-solution-sales/090315/ibm-partners-arm-drive-iot-solutions.