ARMONK, N.Y., Nov.
21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced
an array of new services, industry offerings and capabilities to
help enterprise clients, startups and developers drive digital
transformation with the Internet of Things (IoT). With the
number of connected devices skyrocketing, IBM is making IoT
accessible to millions around the world. IBM is dedicating more
than 1,500 industry experts with its new Watson IoT Consulting
Solutions, as well as giving open and free access to its Watson IoT
Platform.
Today's announcement follows Forrester Research naming IBM a
leader in its Wave™ report1 on IoT software
platforms. In 'The Forrester Wave™: IoT Software
Platforms, Q4 2016,' Forrester analyzed and scored 11 IoT software
platform vendors, identifying IBM as a leader, citing "The Watson
IoT Platform can serve a broad range of advanced IoT use cases."
The report also notes "IBM has added significant capabilities to
the platform, including augmented reality, cognitive capabilities,
blockchain, edge analytics, analytics tooling, and natural language
processing, to name a few. With a strong commitment to open source
standards and a robust global partner ecosystem, IBM is well
positioned for market leadership."
"The Internet of Things is making an enormous impact on our
lives and helping to spur even deeper levels of innovation for
those developing the connected devices and products of our future,"
said Harriet Green, General Manager,
IBM Watson IoT, Commerce and Education. "IBM is helping knock down
the barriers to getting started with IoT, making it accessible for
clients as they begin their digital transformation."
To help clients across industries capture the massive business
opportunity of the digitization of the physical world, IBM today is
launching the industry's first global IBM Watson IoT Consulting
Solutions practice. The practice will feature 1,500 experts
across IBM Watson IoT headquarters in Munich, Germany and in eight other IBM IoT
centers across Asia, Europe and the Americas. By integrating IBM
Watson IoT Platform APIs and technologies, including cognitive,
analytics, mobile, security and cloud capabilities, together with
development and implementation consulting and ongoing support,
clients can fully use the IoT without the risk and complexity of
dealing with multiple vendors.
"Clients can now easily introduce IoT innovation into their
business by leveraging IBM's industry and technical expertise to
deliver lower risk, as-a-service commercial models. We are very
proud our integrated IoT solutions deliver innovation in an easy to
consume model for business leaders," said Jesus Mantas, General
Manager, Business Consulting, IBM. "We are helping clients
accelerate the digitization of their business processes by making
it easy to deploy IoT solutions globally into their business."
According to IDC analysis and buyer perception, IBM is a leader
in the IDC MarketScape for IoT consulting and systems integration
services worldwide2.
The IBM Watson IoT Consulting Solutions practice will employ a
global network of skilled consultants, data scientists and design
and security experts with deep domain and industry expertise, all
dedicated to providing clients with guidance on tackling industry
specific IoT adoption challenges. The first priority industries
include automotive, electronics, industrial products, insurance,
retail, telecommunications, transportation and buildings.
Clients can apply Watson cognitive
computing capabilities, including machine learning and natural
language to tap into massive amounts of unstructured data -- such
as videos and sounds –- to gain insights and augment decision
making.
Ricoh, a global technology company that has been transforming
the way people work for more than 80 years, is one of the first
global organizations to work with the new IBM IoT consultants to
redesign their engagement model and help its clients embrace
intelligent workplace solutions designed to improve office
collaboration and innovation.
"Ricoh is helping customers meet the needs of constantly
changing workstyles in the 'new world of work,' where information
is at the heart of every successful business decision," said
Mona Abutaleb, SVP, Services, Ricoh
Americas and President & CEO, mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc., a
Ricoh company. "We are teaming with IBM and combining our knowledge
and expertise to deliver Ricoh's 'Workstyle Innovation Technology,'
which helps our clients collaborate and share information more
easily and efficiently."
In addition to the new Watson IoT Consulting Solutions practice,
IBM also is announcing new industry offerings available via its
Watson IoT Platform, including IBM Watson IoT for Manufacturing and
Asset Health Insight, designed to help clients address
industry-specific IoT adoption challenges and opportunities.
Manufacturing is one of the largest opportunities in IoT, with
McKinsey estimating IoT applications in factory settings to have
the potential to create value of $1.2
trillion to $3.7 trillion per year in 20253.
Now, using IBM Watson IoT for Manufacturing, businesses will be
able to better manage factory equipment and assets, improve
manufacturing processes and manage production resources more
effectively. For example, the new capabilities include intelligent
assets and equipment to sense, communicate and self-diagnose issues
to improve machinery performance and reduce downtime. Using
Asset Health Insights together with IBM Prescriptive Maintenance,
organizations can maintain assets based on current asset condition
using advanced analytics and data around weather, asset performance
and maintenance. Additional industry offerings on the IBM
Watson IoT Platform include IBM Watson IoT for Automotive, IBM
Watson IoT for Electronics and IBM Watson IoT for Insurance.
Via a new collaboration with Aras, the two companies are
bringing together IBM's leading Application Lifecycle Management
solution with Aras' Product Lifecycle Management platform to help
engineers integrate the complex hardware and software development
processes necessary to make the smart, connected products of the
future.
Developers and Start-Ups Tap IBM Watson IoT Platform
IBM is already working with over 50,000 developers around the
globe to help them to get up and running on the IBM Watson IoT
Platform. Just seven months ago, IBM teamed up with Coursera, the
education platform that partners with top global universities and
organizations to offer online courses, to create and launch "A
developer's guide to the IoT," a course that already has more than
22,000 registrants.
The IBM Watson IoT Platform, a security-rich, scalable and open
platform, let's developers quickly connect, build, launch and
manage IoT applications and solutions. To help make creating and
developing IoT applications more accessible than ever before, IBM
will offer:
- Free access to IBM Watson IoT Platform: For
businesses who are just starting out on IoT and developers testing
out and exploring new IoT innovations, IBM offers open and free
access to the IBM Watson IoT Platform development capabilities. As
projects grow, developers can then take their prototypes and scale
to full production to meet business needs.
- IoT education courses: To help the new wave of technical
innovators learn how to develop IoT applications, IBM continues to
offer industry-leading learning classes, via its collaboration with
Coursera, and via new, easily consumable IoT learning tutorials on
IBM's open Watson IoT Academy. These tutorials, led by IBM subject
matter experts, include an introduction to programming a Raspberry
Pi; how to use Natural Language Processing; and how to use
Node-RED, the open source visual programming tool set that is
becoming a standard for building connected IoT programs.
Across the globe, IBM is working with more than 6,000 clients,
across industries, to help them truly realize the benefits of IoT.
For more information on IBM Watson IoT, please visit
www.ibm.com/iot or follow @IBMIoT on Twitter.
Sources:
1 Forrester. "The Forrester
Wave™: IoT Software Platforms, Q4 2016." November 15, 2016.
http://www.ibm.com/iot/forrester-iot-wave
2 IDC, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Internet of Things
Consulting and Systems Integration Services 2016 Vendor Assessment
#US41880716, November 2016.
3 McKinsey&Company. "Unlocking the Potential of the
Internet of Things." June 2015.
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/the-internet-of-things-the-value-of-digitizing-the-physical-world
Media Contact:
Hanna
Smigala
IBM Media Relations
1-203-512-5497
Smigala@us.ibm.com
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