ENGIE Subsidiary Cofely Services Integrates SIGFOX Solution for Building Management

28 May 2015 - Cofely Services, a subsidiary of leading European multi-service company ENGIE, today announced that it is entering a new era in driving energy efficiency of buildings and smart metering by connecting its service offering to the SIGFOX  network. Through this new partnership, Cofely Services reinforces its expertise in data processing and analysis, while offering its clients reduced operating costs.

Cofely Services is currently working on three new projects totaling 1,500 sites and 7,500 connected devices and within three years, the company plans to connect at least 100,000 devices.

Cofely Services and SIGFOX: complementary expertise for the energy management buildings and smart metering
ENGIE participated in SIGFOX’s $115m fundraising round last February and recently Cofely Services began using SIGFOX's innovative connectivity technology as part of  an enhanced range of building management services.

SIGFOX’s wireless, ultra-narrowband (UNB) network has been exclusively designed for small messages that meet the needs of the vast majority of IoT devices. By providing economical, energy-efficient two-way transmission of data, SIGFOX is lowering barriers to wide-scale implementation of IoT and M2M solutions, and greatly extending the battery and service life of connected devices.

Jean-Pierre Monéger, CEO of Cofely Services: "With SIGFOX, we open the field of possibilities. Gains in terms of easier installation are indeed significant, allowing us to offer our services to new types of buildings, such as multi-site, or buildings that are difficult to access.

About Cofely Services and ENGIE
Cofely Services provides sustainable solutions enabling its customers to reduce energy consumption, improve economic performance, and control their environmental impact.

Cofely's expertise are in three broad areas: improving energy and environmental performance of buildings, local renewable energy production and integration services. In France, Cofely Services employs 12,000 people and generated a turnover of 2.5 billion Euros in 2014. Cofely Services is a subsidiary of ENGIE, a leading European multi-service company, with a turnover of 15.7 billion euros in 2014 and 100 000 employees.

Source: Businesswire

Numerex Launches FASTrack PrePaid Tracking Solution

20 May 2015 – Numerex, a leading provider of interactive machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions enabling the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced the launch of FASTrack PrePaid – a new, low-cost, turnkey offering that combines advanced vehicle tracking, monitoring and recovery, and other desirable features into one, simple-to-use, economical solution.

Using FASTrack PrePaid, fleet managers and dealers can provide vehicle owners with a solution that offers driver-behavior monitoring as well as an economical tracking and recovery solution for their vehicles.

The easy-to-deploy offering is built on Numerex's award-winning, cloud-based platform and is coupled with the Numerex network. The offering is available as a bundled solution with options for 24 or 36 months of prepaid service.

Driver safety and security features provide the ability to monitor vehicle fluid levels, receive maintenance reminders and perform remote door unlocking. Driving behavior patterns including excessive speeding, braking and idle times are also automatically logged and can be used to identify opportunities to improve fuel efficiency and general road safety.

Vehicles can also be effectively monitored with user-defined "geo-fences" that trigger web portal, email, or text message alerts should the vehicles venture beyond pre-set boundaries or routes. In the event of theft, the vehicle starter can be remotely disabled, helping facilitate recovery. A viewable route history also helps monitor, track and trace vehicles as necessary.

"FASTrack PrePaid fills an important gap in the market and delivers an affordable, easy-to-use vehicle monitoring, tracking and recovery solution that enhances the security, safety and productivity of drivers and their vehicles," said Mike Lang, SVP and President of IoT Solutions at Numerex (above). "This new offering also provides great opportunities for car dealers to enhance their own accessory revenues when their customers are finalizing the purchase of a vehicle."

FASTrack PrePaid is compatible with a range of popular vehicle monitoring devices. The application is accessible from smart phones, tablets, laptops and desktop PCs.

About Numerex
Numerex Corp. (Nasdaq:NMRX ) is a leading provider of interactive and on-demand machine-to-machine (M2M) enterprise solutions enabling the Internet of Things (IoT). The Company provides its technology and services through its integrated M2M horizontal platforms, which are generally sold on a subscription basis. The Company offers Numerex DNA® solutions including hardware and smart Devices, cellular and satellite Network services, and software Applications utilizing Numerex solution technology. The Company also provides business services to enable the development of efficient, reliable, and secure solutions while accelerating deployment. Numerex is ISO 27001 information security-certified, highlighting the Company's focus on M2M data security, service reliability and around-the-clock support of its customers' M2M solutions. For additional information, please visit www.numerex.com.

Source: Numerex

PTC Announces IOT Acacemic Programme

13 May 2015 - PTC today announced it has launched the PTC IoT Academic Program to address the growing concern of an IOT talent shortage by providing students with an investigative learning experience and hands on exposure to the ThingWorx® IoT application development platform.

A recent study published by the World Bank estimates that over the next 10 years there will be two million unfilled Information and Communication Technology-related jobs globally. In addition, over 95% of companies say they will be using the IoT in some form within the next three years. This requires educational institutions to better prepare students for employment by these companies.

• Over 200 global universities and colleges now offer the PTC Internet of Things Academic Program
• 10 of Top 15 engineering schools in North America have added ThingWorx to curriculum

The PTC IoT Academic Program consists of the ThingWorx application development platform in a PTC-hosted environment where students and educators can build their own IoT apps. Users gain access to step-by-step educational content and ThingWorx training from PTC University with curricular that will help them quickly learn the platform as well as a community web presence to share knowledge and support. The PTC IoT Academic Program provides exposure to the Internet of Things and to an application development platform that students may not get in the regular classroom. The program also helps prepare students to meet the needs of employers interested in building smart, connected products and systems.

"The manufacturing movement around IoT platforms and devices has the potential to revolutionize the way products are built and maintained throughout the world,” said Dr. Nathan Hartman, Director of the Purdue University Product Lifecycle Management Center of Excellence. “Connected devices driven by model-based product representations can efficiently and proactively leverage the supply chain capacity in specific industrial sectors. Teaching the principles and the technology surrounding IoT tools and platforms will help prepare the next generation technical workforce for that environment, with the potential to make U.S. manufacturing more competitive."

“IoT is one of the most revolutionary and exciting technology trends of this lifetime,” said John Stuart, senior vice president global education, PTC. “Companies and educators alike are trying to understand how the IoT can be taught and implemented, and we’re working closely with our corporate customers, market partners and educators to ensure students from all disciplines are better prepared to meet the needs of today’s IoT world.”

Educators, researchers and students can go to www.ptc.com/go/iotacademic and the Academic Program tab to register for the program.

Additional Resources
•    PTC IoT Academic Program
•    PTC Blog: How Do We Integrate IoT Skills into the Classroom

About PTC
PTC is a global provider of technology platforms and enterprise applications for smart and connected products, operations, and systems. PTC’s enterprise applications serve manufacturers and other businesses that create, operate and service products. Led by its award winning ThingWorx application enablement platform, PTC’s platform technologies help companies deliver new value emerging from the Internet of Things. An early pioneer in Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, PTC today employs more than 6,000 professionals serving more than 28,000 businesses worldwide.

Contacts

PTC
Beth Ambaruch, 952-435-5058
Corporate Communications
bambaruch@ptc.com
or
WeberShandwick
Anand Savani, 617-520-7042
asavani@webershandwick.com

Samsung Launches ARTIK IOT Platform

12 May 2015: In a keynote address at Internet of Things World, the President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Electronics., Young Sohn called on the technology industry to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to address major challenges the world faces today. He also emphasized the importance of open platforms and industry collaboration to accelerate development of new IoT applications and services.

“We need to create powerful open platforms that will harness the information generated by IoT to develop new insights and new approaches to meet the challenges we face as a society.”

“As an industry we must join together to use the power of IoT to address challenges posed by issues such as aging population demographics, water shortages, increasing traffic congestion, pollution and major health issues,” said Sohn. “We need to create powerful open platforms that will harness the information generated by IoT to develop new insights and new approaches to meet the challenges we face as a society.”

To enable faster deployment of IoT applications and services, Sohn announced the Samsung ARTIK™ platform. ARTIK is a production-ready, open platform that includes the hardware, software, development boards, drivers, tools, advanced security features and connectivity for rapidly building cloud-connected IoT devices. The ARTIK platform comes in a variety of configurations to meet the specific requirements of a wide range of IoT market segments from wearables and home automation, to smart lighting and industrial applications. More information on the ARTIK platform can be found by visiting www.artik.io.

SmartThings Founder and CEO Alex Hawkinson joined with Young Sohn during his keynote to introduce SmartThings Open Cloud. Open Cloud is powered by SAMI, a data driven development platform that Samsung announced last May that includes simple, open APIs and SDKs. The open platform is a cloud-based software layer that allows the sharing of diverse data sets from an unlimited number of sources. This vast amount of data, which previously would have been impossible to bring together, can then be broken up into smaller chunks for visualization and analysis.

SmartThings Open Cloud allows any device connected to the Internet to communicate with any other connected device, generating new information, new correlations and entirely new insights. It enables device makers to focus on building IoT devices and applications without having to build and maintain the cloud infrastructure required to connect those devices.

To demonstrate the potential for IoT to meet major societal challenges, Sohn also announced the Samsung ARTIK Challenge – offering a top prize of $100,000 for the most effective use of IoT and ARTIK technology for reducing water consumption by individuals or municipalities.

More information on the Samsung ARTIK Challenge can be found at ARTIK.challengepost.com.

Throughout his keynote address, Sohn underscored the importance of open platforms, security and an ecosystem of partners that are all necessary to accelerate the growth of IoT and achieve its full benefits. He was joined on stage by representatives of several startup companies Samsung is working with to develop technologies based on open platforms. In addition, the company announced that the Samsung ARTIK platform would be incorporated into future versions of Samsung digital appliances and that those appliances would also connect to the SmartThings Open Cloud.

About the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC)
SSIC is a global organization within Samsung’s Device Solutions division, with the core missions of open innovation in collaboration with entrepreneurs and strategic partners, investments in disruptive technologies and startups, and new business creation through M&A and partnerships. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, with offices in Korea, Israel and the U.K., SSIC’s focus areas include cloud infrastructure, digital health, Internet of Things, smart lighting, and smart machines.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies, redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, cameras, digital appliances, printers, medical equipment, network systems, and semiconductor and LED solutions. We are also leading in the Internet of Things space through, among others, our Smart Home and Digital Health initiatives. We employ 307,000 people across 84 countries with annual sales of US $196 billion. To discover more, please visit our website at www.samsung.com and our official blog at global.samsungtomorrow.com.

Contacts
Samsung Electronics
Tom Beermann, +1-650-223-7875
tom.beermann@ssi.samsung.com
Daniel Yoo, +1-650-804-7304
dan.yoo@ssi.samsung.com

Brightstar and Kii Announce Open ‘Space’ Ecosystem to Bring IoT Products to Market

12 May 2015 - Brightstar, a SoftBank subsidiary and the world’s largest specialized wireless distributor for the wireless industry, and Kii, a leading mobile and IoT back-end platform provider, today announced a partnership to better connect the IoT market by creating a global ecosystem supporting the development and distribution of IoT products into retail and mobile operator channels.

The new ecosystem, dubbed “Space: The Infinity of Things™,” is open to all IoT players from manufacturers and developers to retailers and mobile operators. Manufacturers who want to sell their IoT devices globally can leverage Brightstar’s worldwide network to establish new points of entry. Developers working with the open IoT platform will have access across all devices, operating systems, and chipsets, allowing them to create innovative new applications and services for IoT devices more quickly. For mobile operators and retailers who want to jointly source connected products, the open IoT ecosystem offers the benefits of scale to bring their products to market more quickly and opens new business opportunities.

“Brightstar’s expertise in wireless distribution and specialized services is unparalleled and we are in the ideal position to facilitate collaboration in the IoT market within the mobile industry,” said Atsushi Taira, Brightstar’s Chief Planning and Optimization Officer. "Our goal is to accelerate the go-to-market process of these innovative products by connecting operators and retailers with the right mix of IoT devices at affordable price points for consumers.”

"We’re providing device manufacturers, service providers and developers with all the enabling tools and services they need to quickly and economically build successful connected solutions from the idea/prototyping stage all the way to production operation and then Brightstar can manage their distribution," said Masanari Arai, CEO of Kii.

Device manufacturers are building smart products at an unprecedented pace, but the process for getting them into customer hands is slow and inefficient. Architecting underlying systems and services for production-grade, interconnected IoT initiatives is complex, costly and time consuming. Brightstar and Kii will accelerate this process and drive IoT innovation by creating an accessible ecosystem and an open platform for development.

Due to a partnership between Kii and the Alibaba IoT Cloud Division in China, devices that deploy under the open IoT platform can enjoy full interoperability on the Alibaba IoT Cloud. Device manufacturers can give their IoT devices global cloud access through a single deployment through “Space” to sell in China and the rest of the world.

“Much of the success of smart devices and IoT solutions hinges not just on the devices themselves, but on making them available to consumers in the right retail setting,” Taira said. “As smartphones reach a saturation point in many markets, operators are diversifying their portfolio from smartphones and tablets to include lifestyle enhancing products such as connected home and mobile health devices.”

Through the open ecosystem, Brightstar is currently working with prominent operators and retailers such as SoftBank Mobile, LG U+ and Shinsegae. Additionally, Brightstar and Kii are working with information and communications technology distributors such as SBCK Corp. and SoftBank Commerce & Service Corp.

Brightstar and Kii will be also working with international manufacturers such as Toshiba, YanKon, ThroughTek, Liquid Image, iFit, Rooti, Fineck, Toymail, Haltian, Mozbii, Leeo, Astak and Kenzenwear to bring products to market more efficiently for consumers.

For more information, visit iotspace.org.

About Brightstar
Brightstar is the world’s largest specialized wireless distributor and a leading provider of diversified services focused on enhancing the performance and results of the key participants in the wireless device value chain: manufacturers, operators and retailers. In 2014, Brightstar reported global net revenues of more than $10 billion and employs about 9,000 people on six continents. For more information, please visit Brightstar.com.

About Kii
Kii is focused on addressing the high-performance demands of innovation in the connected world with an end-to-end backend platform optimized for Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile applications. Businesses of all sizes are able to build, test, deploy, manage, optimize and acquire users from a single integrated platform to accelerate time to market. Trusted by the world's largest device manufacturers and mobile carriers such as NTT Docomo, Kii currently serves 140M+ end users worldwide. Kii is a global company with data centers in the US, China and Japan. For more information, follow @KiiCorp or visit kii.com.

Contacts

Brightstar
Erik Hofmeyer, 305-921-1258
Erik.Hofmeyer@brightstar.com
@Brightstar
OR
Kii
Lauren Epstein, 212-334-9753, ext. 117
North 6th Agency, Inc.
lepstein@n6a.com

NTT DOCOMO Extends Uses of ThingWorx IoT Platform

6 May 2015 – PTC and NTT DOCOMO, INC., Japan’s largest mobile service provider, today announced the companies are expanding their relationship to extend the use of the ThingWorx IoT Development Platform at DOCOMO in order to streamline use of cloud-based IoT platforms. Serving more than 65 million mobile customers, DOCOMO operates a high-quality nationwide LTE network.

PTC and DOCOMO will continue to jointly market IoT solutions that are specifically developed for the Japanese market. ThingWorx will provide its IoT development platform for DOCOMO cloud-based software, taking advantage of its connectivity and communication technology to implement IoT solutions. Together with Nippon Systemware, a Tokyo-based system integrator with a proven track record in software and hardware development, the companies will deliver solutions that customers can use, utilizing the DOCOMO high-quality, nationwide mobile network to serve the specific needs of its individual business customers.

“The extension of our business relationship with DOCOMO is a great opportunity for businesses that want a single source for device, network and IoT solutions,” said Russ Fadel, president, ThingWorx, a PTC Business. “We look forward to continue working with DOCOMO to drive business value in the emerging IoT market.”

ThingWorx offers an innovative platform for rapidly developing and deploying applications to realize the opportunity and value presented by the Internet of Things economy. The ThingWorx simplified and unified approach to IoT applications enables companies to iteratively innovate business processes significantly faster than conventional methods and tools, thus accelerating time to value, reducing cost and risk, and transforming how products, people, and systems connect and interact.

“The ThingWorx technology enables us to rapidly generate applications that are easily extended and modified through the lifecycle of the service, giving us the ability to quickly respond to the demands of our business customers.” said Naoki Tani, managing director, M2M business department, NTT DOCOMO. “We look forward to continuing our work with PTC to offer our business customers this joint, next generation IoT solution.”

PTC and DOCOMO expect to offer business customers customizable solutions that will seamlessly integrate applications, networks and devices, helping them to transform their businesses in the IoT market.

The ThingWorx partner ecosystem offers a wide range of applications, pre-integrated software components, and skills providing the necessary building blocks required to rapidly design, build, deploy and manage IoT applications. Comprised of components that are built by ThingWorx, ThingWorx partners, third party developers, and independent hardware and software vendors, these offerings add value to all members of the IoT value chain by delivering the technology, tools and expertise to implement IoT solutions.

Source: PTC

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PTC to Acquire Predictive Analytics Leader ColdLight

5 May 2015 – PTC  today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ColdLight, a visionary in big data machine learning and predictive analytics, for approximately $105 million. The acquisition of ColdLight’s Neuron automated predictive analytics platform will enrich PTC’s technology portfolio and extend PTC’s position as a leader in the Internet of Things (IoT) market.

ColdLight will serve as PTC’s core data analytics platform to deliver new value to markets both companies serve today – manufacturing, healthcare, media and retail – as well drive growth across new markets. When combined with PTC’s ThingWorx® IoT platform, ColdLight’s Neuron will automate the analysis of data from things to address a range of important challenges. These challenges include detecting failure patterns from data, modeling correlations, predicting failures, prescribing remedies and prioritizing recommendations against cost constraints. ColdLight’s Neuron platform addresses these challenges by using artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to automatically and continuously learn from data, discover patterns, build validated predictive models and send information to virtually any type of application or technology.

The ability to predict outcomes has incredible value, especially in the context of ensuring product performance and preventing product failure and downtime. PTC believes it will be particularly useful to improving after-sales service, which PTC believes is a major industrial application that drives business value in the IoT. Companies today have an overwhelming need to gain insights from massive amounts of data. To meet that demand, companies are competing for a scarce new resource – data scientists. ColdLight’s Neuron platform automates deep data discovery and predictive modeling, speeding time to market and reducing the dependency on expert data scientists.

“Our business strategy has been centered on helping companies transform how they create, connect, operate and service products,” said Jim Heppelmann, President and CEO, PTC (left). “Sensor data by itself creates value, but that value is magnified dramatically when companies use predictive analytics to process that data into many forms of actionable knowledge that can transform the way they do business. With this acquisition, PTC will possess an innovative advanced analytics platform that will allow us to accelerate how we help our customers capitalize on the explosive growth potential of this rich new resource.”

The Internet of Things unleashes a massive new source of real-time information – smart, connected products. These “things” have a lot of important insights to share, but they’re speaking in a code that typically only data scientists understand. Companies need a new generation of big data analytics tools to make sense of, and create value from, all this new data.

As part of PTC, the combination of Neuron and the ThingWorx® IoT platform will enable rapid development of more advanced IoT applications that leverage Neuron’s machine learning capabilities. Just as ThingWorx is able to reduce time, cost and risk associated with IoT applications, ColdLight does the same with advanced and predictive analytics. ColdLight technology simplifies how predictive models are defined and maintained, removing the largest hurdle to a quick and broad adoption of advanced and predictive analytics for IoT. The key to unlocking real value is in actionability of those outcomes. By combining Neuron with ThingWorx, results and corrective actions will be able to be delivered to people or directly to machines and devices.

Additionally, ColdLight will be the cornerstone of PTC’s big data and analytics strategy which will embrace both in-house and partner-based solutions to provide PTC’s customers with a wide range of choices to maximize business value across the analytics market.

PTC will use the ColdLight platform to speed the creation of advanced and predictive analytics applications that support manufacturers’ service strategies, such as predictive maintenance and system monitoring, in complement to PTC’s existing service lifecycle management (SLM) and extended product lifecycle management (PLM) solution portfolio.

"We share PTC's vision for the need to improve how data is captured, analyzed, understood and acted upon in order to help organizations drive more impactful IoT strategy," said Ryan Caplan, CEO, ColdLight. "We believe all industries, but especially manufacturing, can benefit from a data analytics strategy in the Internet of Things era. We are excited to pursue this broad set of opportunities with the resources and proven IoT technology portfolio that PTC provides.”

This acquisition is expected to close in May 2015, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. From a financial perspective, ColdLight run-rate subscription revenue is approximately $2 million per quarter. Based on cost synergies and investment plans for ColdLight, if acquired, PTC does not expect a material impact on its FY’ 15 non-GAAP EPS.

Source: PTC

IBM Brings the Internet of Things to the Enterprise

31 Mar 2015: IBM today announced that it will invest $3 billion over the next four years to establish a new Internet of Things (IoT) unit, and that it is building a cloud-based open platform designed to help clients and ecosystem partners build IoT solutions.

IBM’s pioneering work in Smarter Planet and Smarter Cities was based on practical applications of IoT in the enterprise and led to a broad set of solutions, ranging from water management to optimizing retail and customer loyalty to alleviating traffic congestion. IBM leads in enterprise IoT implementations that securely combine and analyze data from a wide variety of sources.

With new industry-specific cloud data services and developer tools, IBM will build on that expertise to help clients and partners integrate data from an unprecedented number of IoT and traditional sources. These resources will be made available on an open platform to provide manufacturers with the ability to design and produce a new generation of connected devices that are better optimized for the IoT, and to help business leaders across industries create systems that better fuse enterprise and IoT data to inform decision-making.

“Our knowledge of the world grows with every connected sensor and device, but too often we are not acting on it, even when we know we can ensure a better result,” said Bob Picciano, senior vice president, IBM Analytics. “IBM will enable clients and industry partners apply IoT data to build solutions based on an open platform. This is a major focus of investment for IBM because it’s a rich and broad-based opportunity where innovation matters.”

IBM estimates that 90 percent of all data generated by devices such as smartphones, tablets, connected vehicles and appliances is never analyzed or acted on. As much as 60 percent of this data begins to lose value within milliseconds of being generated. To address this challenge, IBM is announcing it will offer:

• IBM IoT Cloud Open Platform for Industries: This platform will provide new analytics services that clients, partners and IBM will use to design and deliver vertical industry IoT solutions.  For example, IBM will introduce a cloud-based service that helps insurance companies extract insight from connected vehicles. This will enable new, more dynamic pricing models and the delivery of services that can be highly customized to individual drivers.
• IBM Bluemix IoT Zone: New IoT services as part of IBM’s Bluemix platform-as-a-service will enable developers to easily integrate IoT data into cloud-based development and deployment of IoT apps. Developers will be able to enrich existing business applications – such as enterprise asset management, facilities management, and software engineering design tools – by infusing more real-time data and embedded analytics to further automate and optimize mission-critical IoT processes.
• IBM IoT Ecosystem: Expansion of its ecosystem of IoT partners – from silicon and device manufacturers to industry-oriented solution providers – such as AT&T, ARM, Semtech and newly announced The Weather Company – to ensure the secure and seamless integration of data services and solutions on IBM’s open platform.

IBM’s capabilities are illustrated in a new global strategic alliance announced today with The Weather Company through WSI, its global B2B division. WSI’s forecasting system ingests and processes data from thousands of sources, resulting in approximately 2.2 billion unique forecast points worldwide, and averages more than 10 billion forecasts a day on active weather days. The IoT and cloud computing allow for collection of data from more than 100,000 weather sensors and aircraft, millions of smartphones, buildings and even moving vehicles. The two companies will help industries utilize their understanding of weather on business outcomes and take action systemically to optimize those parts of their businesses.

The new unit will be led by Pat Toole as General Manager.

For more information on IBM’s Internet of Things business, please visit www.ibm.com/IoT
*   *   *
As a leader in building practical IoT applications for the enterprise, IBM is working with a broad range of global clients, including:

• Continental is jointly developing fully-connected mobile vehicle solutions with IBM for car manufacturers around the world.
• Cummins Inc. collects and transmits real-time performance data of its engines for predictive analysis with IBM IoT solutions to maintain higher operating levels and reduce downtimes.
• Pratt & Whitney is using IBM IoT solutions, including predictive analytics, to more accurately and proactively monitor the health of more than 4,000 commercial engines.
• SilverHook Powerboats is using IBM’s IoT Foundation service to access and analyze telematic and biometric data from its boats and pilots to make real-time racing decisions.
• IBM is engaged in a partnership with the University of South Carolina to produce more insights on predictive maintenance, combining deep industry expertise from the university’s Condition-based Maintenance Research Center with predictive analytics software and skills from IBM.
• Whirlpool Corporation is leveraging IBM's IoT and predictive maintenance and quality solutions to improve the performance and reliability of its appliances.

IBM also has been helping cities around the world become smarter by designing strategies for collecting, sharing, analyzing and acting on data. For example:

Smarter Cities

• Miami-Dade County, Florida is working with IBM on a Smarter Cities initiative to improve services for residents and help agencies share information among the 34 municipalities within the county. The project spans multiple areas including using data from smart meters to analyze and detect water leaks in the Parks, Recreation, & Open Spaces Department; a project to improve the efficiency of buses for the Transit Department, and predictive policing and real-time crime analytics with the Miami-Dade County Police.
• In Montpellier, France the fastest growing city in France, IBM Intelligent Operations delivered via the cloud helps the the District Council set up and experiment services for water management, mobility and emergency management.
  
  Smarter Buildings
• Carnegie Mellon University is using IBM IoT solutions to reduce energy and facility operating costs. Currently in a pilot program, it will eventually be deployed across 36 buildings on its Pittsburgh campus.
• The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is working with IBM to develop and install advanced smart building technology in 50 of the federal government’s highest energy-consuming buildings.

Smarter Public Safety

• The Rochester, Minnesota Police Department is mining, sharing and extracting intelligence from data by working with IBM to improve officer safety, criminal investigations and crime prevention programs.

Smarter Transportation

• In Dublin, Ireland, the city is working with IBM to identify and solve the root causes of traffic congestion in its public transport network.
• In Melbourne, Australia, Yarra Trams is using IBM technology to access real-time information about service disruptions, tram performance and tram locations.

Smarter Water

• In Canada, the Southern Ontario Water Consortium is working with IBM using sophisticated tools to understand watershed dynamics, safeguard drinking water and forecast the impact of growth. The new platform analyzes data collected every 15 minutes and assimilates 600 data points per hour from more than 100 sensors.

Additionally, IBM also has partnered with a number of IoT ecosystem leaders, with more to come. For example:

• AT&T and IBM combined their analytic platforms, cloud, and security technologies to gain more insights on data collected from machines in a variety of industries.
• ARM and IBM partnered to combine ARM’s leadership in the embedded market utilizing the ARM® mbed™ platform with IBM’s leadership in Big Data, Analytics and Cloud Services to provide an easy to use Starter kit, enabling IoT developers to rapidly achieve end to end development from device through cloud services.
• IBM Research and Semtech announced a new technology based on low-power, wide-area networks that offers significant advantages over cellular networks and wifi for providing machine-to-machine (M2M) communications.
• ESRI, a market leader in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, has a long history of collaborating with IBM on the development of IoT solutions that bring mapping and spatial analysis to businesses and government institutions around the globe.

Contact(s) information
Lucy Linthwaite
UK External Relations
+44-07920 823429
lucy.linthwaite@uk.ibm.com

John Galvez
UK External Relations
+44-7734-104275

john.galvez@uk.ibm.com

Source: IBM

SmartPatch Selects ThingWorx IoT Platform for its Connected, Wireless Structural Health Monitoring System

10 March 2015 – ThingWorx, a PTC® (Nasdaq: PTC) business and leading Internet of Things (IoT) platform provider, announced today that SmartPatch, an Italian startup company that develops structural health monitoring solutions, has selected ThingWorx to view and understand the data from its connected, wireless applications. These SmartPatch applications help monitor the structural integrity of buildings, bridges, tunnels and monuments.

SmartPatch has developed a patented solution for Structural Health Monitoring that is wireless, low cost and easy to implement. The company is using the ThingWorx IoT platform via a browser connected to a cloud server for its advanced graphical user interface to enable real-time, detailed monitoring of data points such as strain, temperature, tilt and seismic activity. The system will offer a comprehensive view of the measured point and offer immediate data for interpretation and possible action.

“The ThingWorx based system can change the approach to viewing and understanding Structural Health Management data by builders, certification companies, state safety agencies, civil engineers and professionals in the building industry,” said Marco Bonvino, co-founder at SmartPatch. “In our opinion ThingWorx is the most complete IoT platform available on the market and we look forward to making this technology available to our customers.”

In addition to using the ThingWorx IoT platform, SmartPatch is also taking advantage of PTC Creo to offer new graphical visualization of the infrastructure, implementing a rotating 3D model.

“SmartPatch is a good example of how IoT technology can transform existing business processes such as structural health monitoring to enable a step change in efficiency and responsiveness, ” said Russ Fadel, president, ThingWorx. “The age of the Internet of Things is upon us and forward thinking companies, such as SmartPatch, will use the ThingWorx IoT platform to deliver business value to their customers.”

Additional Resources

• ThingWorx Application Development Platform Overview
• LiveWorx IoT Industry Conference; May 4-7, 2015 at Westin Copley, Boston, MA
• “How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Business” Harvard Business Review article

About SmartPatch
SmartPatch is an Italian startup company, which was founded in early 2014 by Marco Bonvino, Guido Maisto e Melanie Diziol. SmartPatch operates within I3P, the Innovative Enterprise Incubator of the Politecnico di Torino, and is one of the 155 European companies to receive funding under the Horizon2020 EU program. In 2014 its innovative Structural Health Monitoring system for buildings and infrastructures was awarded the Start Cup Piemonte e Valle d’Aosta and was ranked first at the Italian Venture Forum. SmartPatch is already developing applications and implementing pilot plants for well-known players in civil construction, composite building and infrastructure industries. For more information please visit http://www.smart-patch.com/.

About ThingWorx, a PTC Business
ThingWorx™, a PTC (Nasdaq: PTC) business, provides the first platform designed to efficiently build and run the applications of today's connected world. ThingWorx, the centerpiece of PTC’s Internet of Things (IoT) technology portfolio, combines capabilities from PTC Axeda® solutions to deliver the world’s first complete IoT Platform, which includes connectivity, device cloud, business logic, big data, analytics and remote service applications. The combination delivers a comprehensive IoT technology stack that enables companies to securely connect assets, quickly create applications, and innovate new ways to capture value. Companies already leveraging this technology to capitalize on the potential of the IoT represent a wide range of markets, including manufacturing, energy, agriculture, transportation, and government. For more information, please visit www.thingworx.com, www.axeda.com, and www.PTC.com or follow us on Twitter at @ThingWorx, @Axeda, and @PTC.

Source: ThingWorx

Semtech and Actility Partner for Fast Adoption of LoRaWAN™ Technology for IoT

5 March 2015 – Semtech Corp. (Nasdaq: SMTC), a leading supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, today announced that Actility, a leading Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) solution provider, has been selected for deployment by four operators, including Swisscom and NKE Electronics, for LoRaWAN™ deployments.

The Actility ThingPark solution is a complete solution for large scale LPWAN deployments using the LoRaWAN technology, which is now being standardized by the LoRa Alliance. The LoRa Alliance is one of the fast growing alliances with the members focused on collaboratively driving the LoRaWAN™ protocol global success, by sharing knowledge and experience to ensure interoperability among all telecom operators and private networks deploying the technology. The LoRaWAN protocol offers many benefits over competing technologies, such as bi-directionality, security, mobility for asset tracking, and accurate localization.

“Time-to-market is critical for operators that want to capture the IoT opportunity. We have taken a holistic approach with a platform that addresses not only core network management, but also customer enrollment, activation and billing and facilitates purchasing of third party value-added services. We can enable commercial LPWA networks in less than a month,“ said Olivier Hersent, CEO of Actility and secretary of the technical working group of the LoRa Alliance.

“Actility has been a key contributor to the LoRaWAN specification and a sponsor member of the LoRa Alliance,” said Hardy Schmidbauer, Director of Wireless Products and IoT at Semtech. “The Actility solution is a proven solution ready for large-scale network deployments now.”

“La Poste is engaged on a strategy to develop new services leveraging its brand and its strong customer interaction network. We believe that building a LoRaWAN-based network for the Internet of Things could be a key element in this strategy and that Actility could be a key solution provider to help us build this network and launch innovative IoT-based services,” said Rémi Karcher, Project Director at La Poste.

Actility also announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona its technology partnership with Swisscom around LoRaWAN-based networks.

“We foresee a significant increase in demand for low power wide area network-based solutions in the market,” said Gerhard Schedler, Head of M2M at Swisscom. “We feel that Actility serves as an important ecosystem and technology partner as we explore new opportunities to meet the diverse and emerging needs of our customers.”

Following the announcement of the LoRa Alliance, Semtech and Actility have seen a significant increase in available applications and sensors with the LoRaWAN protocol across all key IoT markets with clear focus on smart energy, smart city and smart building applications.

The ThingPark Wireless sensor partner program makes it easy for manufacturers of legacy ISM-band solutions to integrate with the ThingPark Wireless network via LoRaWAN and also benefit from Actility’s online ThingPark Store (http://store.thingpark.com/thingpark-store/).

This online marketplace provides all the tools that allow a partner to install base stations and manage a regional network, using the same tools as much larger national operators.

For Jean-Claude Le Bleis, CEO of NKE Electronics and a key ThingPark Wireless partner, “LoRaWAN is an ideal wireless protocol for industrial and smart building sensors. The dynamic data rate provides the flexibility to run high resolution sensing applications with private networks, or lower resolution monitoring applications, with the same products. We have products ramping to production for temperature, humidity monitoring, and metering with energy harvesting sensors.”

About Actility
Actility is an industry leader in LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) large scale infrastructure with ThingPark®, a new generation standard-based M2M communication platform. Actility’s ThingPark Wireless® network provides long-range coverage for low-power sensors used in SmartCity, SmartBuilding and SmartFactory applications. Actility also provides the ThingPark Cloud which provides big data storage for sensor data and exposes sensor function through an open API allowing developers to provide vertical applications on top of rolled out sensors. To help vendors transform their sensors, Actility provides the ThingPark IoT platform, which includes embedded software solutions and cloud solutions to help devices connect to innovative applications. Actility is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance, one of the largest, most powerful standards-based effort to enable the Internet of Things (IoT). Visit www.actility.com.

About Semtech
Semtech Corporation is a leading supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors for high-end consumer, computing, communications and industrial equipment. Products are designed to benefit the engineering community as well as the global community. The company is dedicated to reducing the impact it, and its products, have on the environment. Internal green programs seek to reduce waste through material and manufacturing control, use of green technology and designing for resource reduction. Semtec has been publicly traded since 1967. For more information, visit www.semtech.com.

Source: Business Wire