IBM has 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). The company 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.
The announcement follows Forrester Research naming IBM a leader in its Wave report1 on IoT software platforms. In 'The Forrester WaveTM: 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 has launched 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 centres 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”.
Ricoh 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. “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."