OREANDA-NEWS. Building off of IBM's recent investment of \$3 billion over the next four years to establish a new 'Internet of Things' (IoT) unit, today IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced new software and services to enable an ecosystem of partners and clients to more efficiently create, build and manage the connected products and systems at the heart of the IoT:
  • IBM IoT Industry Solutions: two new industry solutions, including an IBM Aviation Maintenance solution to optimize the availability and extend the life of complex, safety critical aviation components; and IBM Product Line Engineering (PLE) capabilities to help engineers more efficiently customize product designs for specific markets.
  • IBM IoT Cloud Open Platform and Bluemix IoT Zone: three new IBM IoT Cloud solutions and eight new IBM IoT Consulting Services offerings based on Bluemix IoT Zone, including an IBM Real-time Asset Management solution that provide IBM's digital innovation platform users with insights into asset conditions to increase visibility and speed resolution of issues; IBM Managed Continuous Engineering for the IoT to help organizations such as Cummins to increase the speed of development of IoT devices and products by enabling real-time feedback into engineering; and a new IBM IoT Workbench service for modeling the design and impact of IoT systems.
  • IBM IoT Ecosystem: a new collaboration with Texas Instruments (TI) to develop a secure, cloud-hosted provisioning and lifecycle management service for IoT devices.

"The IoT is generating massive amounts of data -- data from mobile phones, automobiles, appliances and industrial appliances -- that can be captured, analyzed and transformed into actionable insights, in a secure manner," said Chris O'Connor, general manager, offerings, IBM Internet of Things. "IBM is helping innovators who design and produce the next generation of connected devices and those who operate and maintain those devices, deal with the increasing complexity of creating products and solutions quickly to meet the needs of consumers."

IBM and TI are collaborating to develop IBM's secure, cloud-hosted provisioning and lifecycle management service for IoT devices. Through its collaboration with TI, IBM will create a Secure Registry Service that will provide trust and authentication practices and protocol across the value chain – from silicon embedded in devices/products to businesses and homes.

The IBM Cloud-hosted service will work with a silicon token from which a device can have its identity more securely managed. The collaboration will target the processes involved in provisioning, activating, registering, de-registering and eventually retiring IoT assets simply and more securely, while at the same time facilitating communications from the IoT device to the cloud.

“Cloud connectivity and cloud services are fundamental to the IoT, but there are barriers to adoption especially for industrial applications such as manufacturing, building automation and energy management,” said Avner Goren, general manager of strategic marketing, Embedded Processing, Texas Instruments. “By working with IBM to help secure device identity, provisioning and lifecycle management, we have created a foundation for IoT adoption to reach its full potential through better managed services across easy-to-use connectivity solutions."

IBM and TI plan to make the provisioning life cycle management service available to all cloud service providers and all silicon vendors. Accordingly, IBM and TI will make the APIs public and available for use by other IoT cloud service providers and other silicon vendors.