The following are news announcements made during the past week:
PRESS RELEASE:
Comodo Launches New IoT PKI Security Platform, Partner Program
Comodo, a global innovator and developer of cybersecurity solutions and the worldwide leader in digital certificates, has announced the availability of a new PKI platform for IoT devices and networks. The Comodo IoT Security Platform will allow device manufacturers and network providers to issue and manage PKI and SSL certificates for private ecosystems.
Recent headlines point to attacks by hackers using IoT devices with no security embedded and exposed vulnerabilities. The new Comodo PKI certificate platform directly addresses this problem by enabling trusted, third-party, mutual authentication of devices to networks. This secure identification and connection is essential for the health and safety of both end-user devices and the networks to which they connect.
“Too many devices are coming to market with weak or no security pre-installed,” said Damon Kachur, head of IoT Solutions at Comodo. “Comodo’s platform will help to ensure that only authenticated and approved devices are connecting to the correct, corresponding and private network. This reduces the risk that IoT devices can be compromised and endanger people’s lives or privacy, or be used in DDoS or hacking attacks.”
PKI is a legacy technology that has been used in IT for more than 20 years, and as encryption strengths grow, it remains a trusted method for authenticating people, devices and network access, and preventing the attack of secure devices. Comodo is expanding the traditional use of PKI to offer an automated platform that will allow PKI certificates to be managed throughout the entire lifecycle at volumes that can scale to the level required for the IoT market.
“IoT is a developing technology use case that demands strong security. There are already billions of devices connected to the global internet, and some researchers are predicting 50 billion by 2020. Enterprises using IoT devices should look to companies like Comodo that can help secure connections to their private networks in a thorough and simple way,” said Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst at ESG. “IoT security is often looked at as a ‘one-and-done’ approach. Comodo can offer the ability to change out a PKI certificate at any time, throughout a connected device’s full lifecycle, adding a new level of consistent security that we just haven’t seen before in this space.”
The new platform also brings a significant innovation to the industry by allowing key rotation to occur on devices, rather than the historic process of issuing one PKI certificate to a device for its entire life.
According to Kachur, “Vulnerabilities are being exposed every day, and an ecosystem or organization needs to be able to react quickly by updating certificates to protect their devices and/or mitigate an attack.”
Comodo is extending the utility and completeness of its IoT certificate solution through an active partner program. The company has already teamed up with Device Authority, a leader in IoT security, for the automated provisioning and management of PKI certificates.
“We are delighted that Comodo has selected KeyScaler to integrate with its IoT PKI security platform,” said Darron Antill, CEO of Device Authority. “The industry will benefit tremendously from the automation and management features that Device Authority and Comodo are bringing to market.”
Utilizing existing technologies and partnerships, Comodo will continue to invest in the new platform. Slated for the second half of 2018, Comodo plans to integrate Comodo’s cWatch technology into the PKI platform. This action will allow for devices accessing the network or receiving updates to run through Comodo’s web-based scanning engines to check for any potential virus or malware, adding additional layers of protection for devices and networks.
PRESS RELEASE:
MapR Technologies, C3 IoT Partner to Accelerate Development of AI, Internet of Things Applications
MapR Technologies, Inc., a leader in delivering one platform for all types of data across every cloud, and C3 IoT, the leading AI and IoT software platform for digital transformation, are partnering to provide an end-to-end solution for AI and/or IoT applications. Announced atStrata Data Conference, this partnership will address the large and growing market opportunity for a new generation of enterprise software that requires intelligent applications based on AI and IoT.
C3 IoT and MapR are collaborating on new technology developments and go-to-market initiatives that enable rapid deployment of mission-critical, secure intelligent applications for commercial and public sector use cases, including real-time fraud detection, cyber and physical security, and predictive maintenance across industries such as healthcare, insurance, and manufacturing. This new partnership will provide both faster time to value for joint customers as well as broader deployment options, allowing applications to leverage any combination of public cloud, private data center, and edge computing technologies.
According to Forrester Research, “Enterprise interest in AI is surging… We expect enterprise interest in, and use of, AI to increase as software vendors roll out AI platforms and build AI capabilities into applications. Enterprises that plan to invest in AI expect to improve customer experiences, improve products and services, and disrupt their industry with new business models.”[1]
Time to market to deploy end-to-end AI and IoT solutions is crucial for realizing business value. In just weeks, C3 IoT and MapR enable organizations to prove and deploy complete production applications. An end-to-end application leveraging the combined platforms from C3 IoT and MapR can aggregate data from numerous enterprise systems, Internet data feeds, and large-scale sensor networks, and process data in real-time with an AI/machine learning engine.
“The opportunities for industrial and commercial organizations to adopt digital technology for productivity improvements and new business creation are unprecedented,” said Ed Abbo, president and CTO, C3 IoT. “In leveraging the MapR Converged Data Platform with the C3 IoT Platform and AI applications, we are empowering companies to establish competitive advantage in the rapidly emerging era of smart connected products. MapR brings proven scale, reliability, and speed that will enable C3 IoT customers to create breakthrough applications faster and yield greater value from their data investments.”
A key pillar of digital transformation is to enable the seamless integration of new intelligent applications with the legacy data and applications that continue to underlie critical business processes. With full support for legacy applications and multi-tenancy, the MapR Converged Data Platform empowers organizations to maintain those existing mission-critical systems and leverage enterprise data sets in conjunction with new AI and IoT applications and development tools operating on the C3 IoT Platform.
“MapR and C3 IoT share a vision for AI and IoT as the most transformative technology of the modern era. Our cooperation ensures that the next generation of enterprise software is secure, reliable, and leverages the full potential of AI and IoT while at the same time providing a bridge from the legacy world to the next-gen world,” said Matt Mills, CEO, MapR. “This approach is crucial for our customers who are taking a pragmatic approach to digital transformation. Together, we are building a rock-solid foundation for the future of digital business. C3 IoT’s tools can harness the power of MapR’s database, persisted streaming, global data store, and edge computing capabilities in one platform to allow our customers to win with data faster.”
Fortune 1,000 companies are rapidly standardizing on both the MapR Converged Data Platform and the C3 IoT Platform in production across industries – including manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, oil and gas, and energy – as CEOs drive digital transformation initiatives requiring AI and IoT across the enterprise.
C3 IoT and MapR will showcase their joint IoT solution at Strata, including presentations at 1pm on Wed., Sept. 27 and on Thu., Sept 28 in the MapR booth (#415).
PRESS RELEASE:
Reveal Mobile Earns Mobile Marketing Association Award for IoT Contributions
Reveal Mobile, a leading innovator in monetizing location-based audience data, has announced it has been recognized by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) with the 2017 Smarties Impact Award for its thought leadership contributions to the association and industry.
Reveal Mobile was honored at the annual Smarties awards gala in New York last night in part for its editorial contributions to two MMA industry education materials released this year: 1) a white paper report on mobile shopping marketing titled, A Circle, Not a Funnel: The Role Mobile Plays in the Consumer Decision Journey, and 2) The Internet of Things: A Guidance Report on Consumer-Facing Connected Objects. Reveal Mobile assisted in the creation of the documents as part of its membership service on the association’s Internet of Things (IoT) Incubation Council and Mobile Shopping Market committees.
The MMA Smarties Impact Awards celebrate a collection of companies who have devoted their time, energy and expertise to furthering the mission of the MMA and the industry.
“The Impact Awards were launched last year to recognize those companies that step forward to galvanize and lead the industry,” said Greg Stuart, CEO, MMA. “Reveal Mobile’s team definitely met that high bar and we are grateful that such a forward-looking company who cares so deeply about the mobile marketing industry is involved with our association.”
Reveal Mobile co-founder and CEO Brian Handly was also a recent recipient of the 2017 Great Minds Award from the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) in the Future Forward – Internet of Things category. The award recognizes the person who incorporated one or more new and innovative techniques, and/or implemented learnings that advance the application and effectiveness of the IoT.
“We are honored and proud to receive these two prestigious awards for the work that the Reveal Mobile does every day to improve and further the mobile marketing industry,” Handly said. “Moving the industry to the next level of acceptance, quality and performance is part and parcel of our company DNA, and we will continue to help it make greater and greater strides.”
ARF is the industry leader in advertising research among brand advertisers, agencies and research firms. Established in 2006, the ARF Great Mind Awards recognize outstanding achievement in advancing the advertising and marketing research industry at large. Other Great Minds Award winners featured top executives from companies such as IBM and Merck as well as faculty from major academic institutions. For more information on the Great Mind Awards, visit https://thearf.org/2017-arf-great-mind-awards/.
PRESS RELEASE:
Industrial IoT Leaders Invest $30 Million in FogHorn’s Series B Funding
FogHorn Systems has announced it has received a Series B round of funding totaling $30 million to support its disruptive innovation in the Industrial IoT (IIoT) edge computing market segment. Intel Capital and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures led the round, with new investor Honeywell Ventures and all previous investors participating, including Series A investors March Capital, GE, Dell Technologies Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Yokogawa, Darling Ventures and seed investor The Hive. This new round brings FogHorn’s total funding to $47.5 million and will be used to significantly expand the company’s engineering resources and global go-to-market presence.
“This major round of funding by many of the world’s largest and most innovative technology and industrial companies will enable FogHorn to continue its drive for industry-first innovation in the IIoT market segment,” said David C. King, CEO of FogHorn. “We have seen unprecedented interest from customers and partners in a huge variety of industries for advanced condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, asset performance management and process optimization solutions.”
FogHorn recently extended its technology leadership position in the IIoT market segment by introducing Lightning ML, the world’s first edge machine learning solution. Built on top of FogHorn’s pioneering CEP (complex event processing)-driven edge analytics software launched in 2016, Lightning ML breaks new ground by giving industrial customers the ability to train and execute machine learning algorithms and other advanced data science models on streaming sensor data right at the source of the data. This facilitates the creation and iterative enhancement of “digital twins” and other sophisticated machine learning and AI models without the need to send all the sensor data to a cloud or data center for processing.
“Both the promise and challenge of IIoT lie in the ability to convert sensor data to actionable insights that improve customers’ operating efficiency and generate new sources of business value,” said Jonathan Ballon, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s IoT Group. “As we’ve watched FogHorn’s progress with both leading IIoT solutions providers and major industrial end customers, we believe their edge analytics and machine learning technology will be a critical factor in enabling those operating efficiencies and delivering that business value.”
“For the oil and gas industry, harnessing IIoT insights will produce significant operating savings and spur major process improvements,” said Cory Steffek, Managing Director North America of Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures (SAEV). “We believe innovators like FogHorn will lead the way in redefining IIoT edge computing to deliver real-time analytics and machine learning value across our entire business – upstream, midstream and downstream.”
With more than 20 billion IoT-connected devices expected by 2020, according to Gartner’s latest projections, FogHorn investor GE estimates that the industrial internet market segment will grow to $225 billion in that timeframe. Unleashing digital industrial transformation requires solving a fundamental computing challenge. That challenge: How to generate actionable insights from all the real-time streaming data constantly being emitted by the profusion of physical, video/audio and other edge sensors deployed in any industrial environment – whether in manufacturing, energy, resources, transportation, smart cities or smart buildings – without the transport and hosting costs, cybersecurity risk and operational latency associated with sending all that operations technology data across a network to a public/private cloud or remote data center.
“FogHorn’s unique edge analytics and machine learning capabilities are a great complement to our existing technologies,” said Murray Grainger, Managing Director and Head of Honeywell Ventures. “Combining advanced software solutions with great physical products to provide increased value for our customers is central to Honeywell’s transformation into a leading software-industrial company. We are excited that FogHorn represents Honeywell Ventures’ inaugural investment and we are committed to helping FogHorn scale faster through access to Honeywell’s customers, channels and global presence.”
PRESS RELEASE:
Vodafone Research Reveals Large-Scale IoT Projects Have Doubled
Vodafone published its fifth annual IoT Barometer Report – the leading global survey of business sentiment regarding investment and innovation in the Internet of Things.
The Barometer report found that the percentage of companies with more than 50,000 connected devices active has doubled in the last 12 months; 84% of IoT adopters say that their use of IoT has grown in the last year; 51% of IoT adopters say that the technology is increasing revenues or opening up new revenue streams; and 66% of all companies agree that digital transformation is impossible without IoT.
Businesses in the Americas have led the way in embracing large scale IoT projects, where 19% of companies using IoT have more than 10,000 connected devices, compared to 13% in Europe and 7% in Asia Pacific. The large scale users also report some of the biggest business gains with 67% of them highlighting significant returns from the use of IoT. Energy and utility companies are at the forefront of the largest IoT projects worldwide, with applications such as smart meters and pipeline monitoring.
The range of benefits that users are getting from IoT is also widening as adoption increases – greater business insights, reduced costs and improved employee productivity top the list globally. In Asia Pacific 53 % of respondents cited increased market competiveness as the top benefit compared to 35% in the Americas and 33% in Europe. In the automotive sector, 51% of companies say that IoT is helping to improve brand differentiation.
Security in IoT is still the biggest barrier for organizations regarding deployment. However, in companies with 10,000 or more connected devices in operation only 7% say security is their top worry. Organizations are taking more steps to tackle security concerns including an increase in security training for existing staff, working with specialist security providers and recruiting more IT security specialists.
As the scale of IoT projects increases the report also notes a rise in connectivity requirements. Companies are looking to use a mix of technologies from fixed line to low power wide area networks (LP-WAN) depending on the application. Typically, large scale projects use four different connectivity options with mobile and Wi-Fi the two most popular. There is increasing interest in the newer technologies such as Narrowband IoT, with 28% of all companies now considering it and other LP-WAN options, for new IoT projects.
Vodafone director of IoT Erik Brenneis said, “Over the five years of this report we have seen the number of companies that have adopted IoT double, and projects have grown from small pilots to global rollouts of tens of thousands of connected devices. IoT is clearly here to stay and the future looks exciting as 79% of adopters are saying that IoT will have an enormous impact on the whole economy in the next five years. I believe we can now say that IoT has come of age and is proving itself across all industries and geographies.”
The IoT Barometer research surveyed 1,278 respondents in 13 countries, US, Brazil, Ireland, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, South Africa, China, India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
PRESS RELEASE:
Lantronix Announces Industrial IoT Global Device Management Solution
Lantronix, Inc. (the “Company”) (NASDAQ: LTRX), a global provider of secure data access and management solutions for Internet of Things (IoT) assets, has announced availability of MACH10 Global Device Manager, a ready-to-use industrial IoT application designed to enable OEMs and system integrators to deploy lifecycle management of their connected devices at scale.
“We’re excited to announce the commercial availability of our first IoT management software product offering, MACH10 Global Device Manager,” said Jeff Benck, president and CEO of Lantronix. “With Global Device Manager, OEMs and systems integrators now have the ability to quickly deliver robust and secure web-scale device management for their IoT devices.”
A June 2017 Gartner study stated that tools that were not designed for IoT management may have many limitations and will only be suitable for a small proportion of things and lifecycles and recommended selecting tools designed specifically for IoT management. The study stated that examples of companies that have management tools developed specifically for IoT applications included Lantronix.
“Tech Data is excited to extend the Lantronix MACH10 solution to our IoT partners. The MACH10 platform offers the agility, flexibility, and scale needed for integrating into industrial environments,” Michelle Curtis, director of Tech Data’s IoT Practice for North America.
Based on the company’s multi-dimensional MACH10 IoT platform, Global Device Manager enables OEMs and system integrators to remotely monitor and manage their installed base of devices. Integration with MACH10 Global Device Manager is done through simple REST API calls, eliminating the need for learning additional programming languages or any porting. Running maintenance operations – from custom configurations to firmware updates to equipment resets and reboots – is as easy as few mouse clicks, whether it’s one machine in a remote building or thousands of machines distributed across the globe. MACH10 Global Device Manager’s sophisticated multi-dimensional features allow OEMs and systems integrators to create custom portals that provide secure multi-user and role-based access while keeping customers’ devices, applications and data separate, secure, and private.
Interested OEMs can find more information on MACH10 and MACH10 Global Device Manager or request a demo by going to www.lantronix.com/mach10 or contacting a Lantronix sales office.
PRESS RELEASE:
FreeWave Technologies Unveils App Server Software to Power IoT Programmability
FreeWave Technologies, Inc. (www.freewave.com), a leader in industrial, secure Machine to Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) wireless networking solutions, announced the availability of its ZumIQ App Server Software (http://www.freewave.com/zumiq/). ZumIQ technology combines proven 900 MHz wireless telemetry with the ability to program and host third-party applications, similar to a Linux-based Raspberry Pi embedded in an industrial Ethernet radio.
Developers can program with any language that is compatible with a Linux kernel, including: Python, Java, C++, Node-RED and Node.js development environments. The ZumIQ App Server software comes pre-loaded with Node-RED, Python and MQTT for easy industrial IoT app development on multiple ZumLink 900 Series radio models (http://www.freewave.com/products/zumlink-900-series/).
In addition, FreeWave showcases the power of this new platform with ZumDash, a Small SCADA App that enables reliable data collection; monitoring, and remote command and control functionality through triggers, alarms and actions. The App supports analog, digital and HART data interfaces with Modbus. ZumDash also provides a “dashboard” with user-defined status updates and data trend visualization from any web-based device. It was created to serve as a cost-effective replacement to small SCADA systems that rely upon expensive Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) type hardware and monthly recurring fees.
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“Once considered unattainable by small- and mid-sized companies, process-driven industrial applications and edge intelligent solutions can now be implemented easily and affordably with FreeWave’s ZumIQ App Server Software.” said Scott Allen, CMO of FreeWave Technologies. “ZumIQ allows customers to automate virtually any industrial site with process control, monitoring and automation without expensive retrofits, recurring subscription fees or costly internal software development teams.”
ZumIQ App Server Software is a real-world intelligent edge and fog computing technology that changes the very nature of process control and automation. Developers are encouraged to join FreeWave’s new pilot program (http://www.freewave.com/zumiq-pilot-program/) to receive a complimentary hardware/software dev kit to write their own industrial IoT applications with easy-to-use developer tools.
FreeWave introduced its ZumLink 900 MHz Series of ruggedized radios to provide power, versatility and flexibility in a rugged and intelligent wireless communications platform. This is the first IIoT platform to provide programmability and implementation of third-party software applications at the edge of outdoor and remote networks. Industries such as government, defense, precision agriculture, oil and gas, unmanned systems, smart cities and utilities can now integrate future-proof IIoT technology into existing networks to solve business problems and maximize operational efficiencies.
ZumLink’s flexible, high-speed, low power consumption radios leverage FreeWave’s ZumBoost Network Acceleration Pack to assure the most efficient network platform possible. ZumBoost introduces techniques such as compression, packet aggregation, forward error correction, and patent-pending Adaptive Spectrum Learning technology to ensure maximum throughput to meet the demands of today’s wireless applications.
PRESS RELEASE:
Industrial Internet Consortium Publishes Edge Computing Edition of Journal of Innovation
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the world’s leading organization transforming business and society by accelerating the adoption of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), has published the fifth edition of the Journal of Innovation with a focus on edge computing.
The Journal of Innovation highlights the innovative ideas, approaches, products, and services emerging within the Industrial Internet, such as smart cities, artificial intelligence, the smart factory, and edge computing. Edge computing promises to bring real-time intelligence to industrial machines at the edge of the network, where data can be processed closer to its source. Edge computing provides businesses with a cost-effective means to transmit and analyze large quantities of data in real-time, enabling them to reduce unplanned downtime, improve worker safety and enhance asset performance.
“The Journal of Innovation brings together innovators and thought leaders across the IoT spectrum. In this issue, our experts share their insights on edge computing as a key enabling technology poised to transform the IIoT,” said Mark Crawford, co-chair of the IIC Thought Leadership Task Group and Standards Strategist, SAP Strategic IP Initiatives. “Edge computing is not a new concept, but as IIoT transforms business processes, the need to use data closer to its source, whether that be from a wind turbine, a deep-water well’s blowout preventer, or an autonomous car, is paramount.”
The Edge Computing edition of the Journal of Innovation includes articles contributed by leaders at IIC member companies including:
PRESS RELEASE:
Orange Business Services Collaborates With Microsoft on IoT Offerings
Orange Business Services and Microsoft are collaborating to deliver large-scale, end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) solutions that boost the digital processes of companies in the manufacturing sector. Enterprises can use the Orange modular IoT solution, Datavenue, strengthened by Microsoft Azure IoT Suite, to transition to Industry 4.0 and optimize the entire manufacturing value chain.
Through this collaboration, companies can take advantage of the combined expertise of Orange and Microsoft regarding data protection, as well as device and data management. This includes the opportunity to leverage Orange Business Services’ many IoT connectivity options, in particular LoRa. Use cases range from supply chain and smart inventory management to digital operations, such as predictive maintenance, employee safety and facility and equipment management.
For its long-term customer e.l.m. leblanc, Orange delivered a customized IoT platform on Microsoft Azure, which provides a tailored solution for remote monitoring, along with curative and predictive maintenance. Subsidiary of the Bosch Group, e.l.m. leblanc manufactures gas boilers and water-heaters since 1932. The company is a major player in the French housing and industrial markets for heating & cooling systems and hot water for sanitary use.
“Innovation is part of e.l.m leblanc’s DNA, continuously providing our customers with new services and more comfort. We have a vision of a connected world where every heating system optimizes its energy performance to protect the environment. This ambition is illustrated in the Optibox solution for our connected boilers. e.l.m. leblanc has fully relied on Orange Business Services’ expertise to develop this solution. Using the Azure Cloud allows for high-level scalability and efficient machine learning solutions with reasonable costs,” said Philippe Laforge, chief executive of e.l.m. leblanc.
The remote monitoring solution collects the boiler’s data and alerts technicians of any malfunction. This allows for more efficient maintenance intervention, with fine-tuned predictions on the probable causes of failure based on real-time data analytics. Preemptive alerts can also be raised by the platform through predictive maintenance algorithms. Benefits include optimization of intervention processes, and increased end-customer satisfaction, thanks to innovative and responsive customer support.
With Datavenue, Orange Business Services offers a comprehensive set of solutions and services to securely manage IoT projects and their integration with information systems, providing certified connected devices best suited to the project’s use cases; connectivity solutions (cellular 3G and 4G, LoRa, LTE M…); a device and data management platform; and extensive expertise to manage the project from conception to implementation: consulting, development, data protection, integration, data analysis, maintenance, etc.
Datavenue boasts over 700 experts working on data and IoT projects, 14 million connected devices managed by Orange, and the capacity to handle over 160 million items of technical data per minute.
With its Azure IoT Suite, Microsoft offers a powerful and consistent software environment to facilitate setting up and scaling large device and data management projects. In order to accelerate the roll out of industrial projects, Azure IoT Suite provides pre-packaged solutions and allows companies to swiftly get familiar with the set-up and explore the most common IoT project scenarios (e.g. remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, connected factory).
The software environment provided by Microsoft will allow for the use of advanced solutions such as Cortana Intelligence Suite (advanced analytics and AI), Power BI (data visualization) and Mobile Apps (Xamarin) to ensure a flawless mobile user experience.
“This partnership between Orange and Microsoft is an important step in our growth strategy targeting the IoT and data analytics B2B market. By adding Azure IoT solutions to our Datavenue portfolio, we provide our customers with powerful software with the assurance that it will seamlessly integrate with Microsoft’s business applications, an industry standard. This partnership is a remarkable opportunity for us not just to expand our business, but also to contribute more actively to the development of the IoT market around the world,” said Beatrice Felder, executive vice president, Customer Experience, IoT and Analytics, Orange Business Services.
“Orange Business Services and Microsoft have been partners for several years. We are excited to engage in this new collaboration tackling the growing market of the Internet of Things. With a partner such as Orange Business Services, we can offer a full end-to-end solution, relying on Orange expertise in IoT connectivity and particularly LoRa, and its proven know-how in integrating IT projects surrounding connected sensors and devices,” said Maziar Zolghadr, Microsoft EMEA Director of Strategic Partnerships.