Recognizing the need for effective connection and exchange of information across a diverse range of devices and applications, PwC will leverage the HPE Universal IoT (UIoT) Platform in its CoE to support development, testing and management initiatives around future cities. The platform will allow PwC to start small and scale the business as demand increases.

The CoE will utilize UIoT platform features, including lightweight machine to machine (M2M) support, expanded device management and increased Long Range (LoRa) support. Together, HPE and PwC will enable IoT applications to provide advanced analytics and machine learning innovations.

“HPE and PwC are working together to offer enhanced services, greater security and improved civic engagement to municipalities around the world, intended to deliver best in class experience to common citizens.” said Som Satsangi, VP & GM, Enterprise Group and MD India, HPE.

“By combining HPE technology solutions and services with PwC business strategy, process, people and change capabilities, we are able to help organizations accelerate business and societal transformations, and derive greater value faster from their IoT initiatives and the Center of Excellence in Kolkata is a testament of our joint efforts,” Satsangi added.

Furthermore, PwC’s applications and dashboard will be integrated with the HPE UIoT Platform to drive scale, security and speed for the new CoE. Initial use cases that are in development in the CoE span the environment, transportation systems and waste management, and will enable:

• Pollution reduction: Smart poles deployed throughout the city will serve as aggregation points for sensors, cameras and digital display boards collecting environmental data. The environment data the smart devices collect across the city will be used to identify areas subject to heavy pollution.
• Urban mobility: IoT devices will be used to collect traffic data and model traffic condition to further modify the timing cycle for signals based on traffic flow. The collected traffic data will then be integrated with GPS data from the transit management system to provide accurate estimated times of arrival (ETAs) for public buses. Also, sensors will be placed in parking lots to enable real-time tracking of available spots.
• Intelligent waste management: Sensors will be used to track the amount of trash held in garbage bins, helping waste management companies determine where garbage must be collected. Also, the garbage collection vehicles will be equipped with GPS devices and RFID readers to ensure the vehicle takes the best route to full trash bins.

Data gathered from IoT devices and cameras deployed across the city will be used to facilitate preemptive governance and improve city operations and emergency response. HPE and PwC are also expanding use cases to other industry verticals including manufacturing and infrastructure.

“Through this project, we are taking our partnership with HPE to the next-level. The burgeoning impact of IoT is going beyond the enterprise and now has large societal implications. Bringing together our industry consulting and technology teams with HPE, we are working on solutions which will bring significant productivity gains to the organizations and societies at large,” said Raman Kalra, Partner, Technology Consulting, PwC India.

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Techseen: You say that telecom software professional service providers still need their classic systems to support their transformation. What are these classic systems? Why and how can they support digital transformation?

Kaftzan: Business Support Systems (BSS) have been supporting telecoms businesses for years. Systems such as billing, CRM and Ordering are still necessary for service providers but they have to evolve; from billing to real-time convergent charging and from CRM and Ordering to true omni-channel digital customer engagement systems. This evolution supports service provider transformation by enabling customers to add and adapt communications services from all areas of the telco landscape, on the fly and in real-time, and they allow customers to interact with their service provider on any channel through any mode of communication. This evolution of the BSS is critical to meet the needs of digital immediacy and empowerment that the digital customer demands.

Techseen: Does the utilization of classic systems reduce the cost of transformation for an enterprise? What are the transformation solutions that are being floated in the market currently that makes Amdocs stand out?

Kaftzan: The cost of a transformation will often be dependent on the starting point and end goal. Some service providers will look to improve one particular part of their business, say the retail store. Others will look to improve all of their customer engagement channels for an omno-channel, multi-modal experience and still others will go for a deep full business transformation that involves the transformation of all elements of the BSS, both back-end and customer facing. Amdocs customer who are using our systems which have been real-time and omni-convergent for years will find they are starting at a better point for transformation than others.

However we have made additional enhancements to our offering that lets the service provider succeed in their transformation strategy. This includes more openness and APIs in our backend systems, support for new business models and digital offerings like OTT and IoT, a digital platform for true multi-modal interaction, our aia intelligence platform which helps our customers bring intelligence to their processes and engagements and the flexibility and user controls that lets the digital customer take control of their experience.

Techseen: In the telecom industry, isn’t convergent billing already happening? Especially in enterprises where there is a need of transparency? How does it connect with digital transformation?

Kaftzan: The telecom industry has been moving towards convergent billing for many years now. The challenge is that as the industry moves towards that goal, the definitions of what convergent means in the context of charging and billing continues to evolve as the demands of the digital economy evolve. It began as a means to unify systems for prepaid and postpaid. It then evolved to mean convergence of lines of business into multi-play. Now it is evolving further and extending into new digital services such as OTT and IoT and a truly real-time experience for all customers over every touch point. A charging and billing system of the digital era cannot be said to be truly convergent if it cannot handle all of these new services on a unified system.

Ironically, many service providers’ BSS systems lag behind in the enterprise space as these customers relied on more customized products and offerings as well as more direct sales and account management.

That, coupled with the relatively low number of enterprise customers as opposed to consumer lead BSS for enterprise to continue to be very customized if not manual systems that could not keep up with the development of the consumer side of the house. Now, with service providers putting more focus on enterprise customers as their core consumer service becomes commoditized, they are seeing a need to provide the same digital and convergent experience to their enterprise customers. Amdocs has put a great deal of effort in helping service providers succeed in this area, in terms of modernizing the product offering capabilities, the Configure Price Quote process as well as ordering of complex enterprise products.

Techseen: Amdocs states that there is a reduction in the cost of ownership when service providers take up convergent billing. How?

Kaftzan: This is achieved through a number of factors. Firstly there is the potential for consolidation of systems, from disparate systems for prepaid, postpaid, wireless, wireline, TV, broadband and other digital services into a single unified system. Furthermore, modern digital monetization systems are run on newer technology that helps service providers keep costs down while increasing scale.

Amdocs Digital Monetization runs NO-SQL databases as opposed to traditional relational databases, which scale better at cost and reduce costly database license fees. A number of functions are run on open source technologies that further reduce capital expenditure. And of course operating on a cloud-enabled architecture reduces dependencies on physical machines and is in turn much more efficient.

Techseen: You also claim that your convergent charging and billing solution delivers real-time charging and scalability in a single carrier-grade system. What is currently lacking in the industry that it needs your solution?

Kaftzan: The key requirement for the industry is to be able to manage all of your revenue and customer processes on a unified system, rather than spate systems for each new service. Service providers are in a hurry to launch new products like IoT and OTT offerings that their current legacy systems cannot handle. That is the key challenge. And many service providers, in their rush to market, are tempted to simply add another system to handle the new services and worry about the convergence of the system into the overall customer experience later.

This solution quickly leads to duplication of processes, and is liable to cause missed revenue opportunities and a poor customer experience. Of course the best would be a convergent system that can already handle these new services, and enable service providers to launch and scale up a new line of business quickly and efficiently.

This is the advantage that Amdocs customers have; a single, real-time system that can handle all of the new services that the telecom industry needs and wants to deploy quickly, and is ready for rapid the rapid growth and high demands of digital consumption.

Techseen: Why do you think carriers are becoming more open to alternate delivery models? What are the challenges they are facing?

Kaftzan: Service providers are dealing with a digital economy that has severely diminished the growth in their core businesses. That has forced them to be more efficient. The digital economy is also filled with new players that are software based and agile in their development of products, and are free to reap the benefits of the major investments that telecoms make in networks and infrastructure. It is this need for efficiency and agility that service providers are looking for, and new delivery models -such as cloud and managed services – for their core systems serve both of those purposes.

Techseen: What are the challenges that Amdocs has faced to convince telecom enterprises to accede to your solution? Is there a gap in awareness/ education or as you state in your white paper, there a need of digital transformation first?

Kaftzan: Amdocs is in the enviable position of being a trusted advisor for the leading service providers in the world. And our customers are constantly challenging us to help them transform from communications service providers to digital service providers. They rely on us for best practices because after all of these years we are recognized as experts in telco BSS. Our Global customer base also gives us a perspective on the possibilities that our customers, who are experts in their local markets, appreciate and we bring that to bear in all of our engagements. But our customers are not waiting for us to tell them where to go.

They are leaders in the telecommunications market and have a vision for what they want to achieve. It is a true partnership that comes from the vision and imperative of the service provider and the global industry leadership of Amdocs that closes any gaps and enables us to drive the optimal digital transformation for each customer.

Furthermore, we realize that each communication service provider is different and has unique needs. Therefore, we need to adjust and accommodate different needs of our customers. For example, even the definition and focus of DSP- digital service provider, varies from one service provider to another. Some service providers or DSPs may focus on consumer experiences and channels, while others might focus on digital services and ecosystem. It means we need to provide different types of solutions, technologies, and services to each of the service providers.

Techseen: One of your biggest communications client is AT&T and recently after its ECOMP has merged with ONAP, reports state that Amdocs’ involvement has bolstered a lot. Which is the next use case for ONAP according to Amdocs?

Kaftzan: To test and verify new virtual services on the ONAP open source platform quickly and efficiently, Amdocs believes the critical next-step for service providers is easy deployment of ONAP through a cloud-based hosting environment that simplifies distribution of open source code. Open source brings unparalleled agility to the market, making it vital that open source contributions are packaged into a mature capability set to fast-track service innovation and extract full value from virtualized networks.

Techseen: What is the next big thing in the telecommunications industry according to Amdocs? Where do you see Amdocs playing a major role in future tech?

Kaftzan: It is difficult to predict the future, but looking ahead to the next couple years, it seems clear that the launch of 5G and the integration of Artificial Intelligence will have a major impact on the telecommunications industry in the near future. 5G is just a year or 2 away and it has the potential to change our lives and how we interact with the world of technology around us. With 5G providing connectivity to billions of devices we will learn what truly ubiquitous connectivity is about.

The telecommunications industry is at the center of that game changing technology and it must do whatever it can to leverage its place in the value chain to maximize opportunities in the digital economy. Amdocs customers are at the forefront of 5G development and as such we must be ready to help them succeed in doing just that.

All of this connectivity creates a need to move past automation to intelligence. Intelligent operations, as well as intelligent interactions with customers. Service providers will need to leverage intelligence in this hyper-connected world in order to not only serve their customers, but delight their customers.

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Oracle claims that customers and partners will be able to gain operation-wide visibility and leverage predictive insights from connected assets. These insights can increase deployment times, reduce costs, improve business outcomes, and accelerate new market opportunities.

The company states that it has combined the power of Oracle IoT Cloud and enterprise applications to introduce new industry solutions for digital field service, smart connected factories, and digital fleet management.

New capabilities

Digital Twin for supply chain management

Digital Twin is a digital representation of a physical asset or equipment that enhances traditional analytics approaches. The object model includes multi-faceted views into current, historical, and predictive data, as well as operational and behavioral dimensions of that asset. This will help remote users to monitor the health of that asset to prevent failures before they occur and also to run simulations of “what-if” scenarios in the context of the business processes.

With Digital Twin, organizations have a new operational paradigm to interact with the physical world, allowing lower operational and capital expenditures, minimizing downtime, and optimizing asset performance.

Digital Thread for supply chain management

Digital Thread is a connected business process framework that leverages IoT and creates a “system of systems” by connecting traditionally siloed elements in real-time throughout the digital supply chain.

By providing an end-to-end view of an asset throughout the entire manufacturing lifecycle, Digital Thread bridges the entire supply chain process from product design and order fulfillment, to manufacturing and product life cycle management, to warehousing and transportation, to logistics and procurement.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning

The company claims to have fully integrated AI and machine learning features across its IoT solutions portfolio. These technologies leverage machine data in the context of business data from applications, such as manufacturing, maintenance, service, and logistics.

According to Oracle, the built-in operational analytics will help detect anomalies, predict equipment failures, and recommend the best course of action. They also provide the intelligence needed to evolve capabilities to increase effectiveness and experiences of applications.

“IoT holds the potential to transform today’s siloed operations into a modern, interconnected, digital set of workflows with real-time visibility and responsiveness,” said Bhagat Nainani, Group Vice President, IoT Applications at Oracle.

“Oracle continues to push the boundaries of IoT to help our customers significantly simplify their IoT deployments. By receiving real-time data streams enhanced with predictive insights, they can reach new levels of intelligence and a much quicker realization of ROI.”

The expansion news comes right after the company introduced IoT Cloud Applications for asset monitoring, connected workforce, fleet monitoring, and production monitoring. It is interesting to see that since earlier this year, the company has been focuding heavily on IoT and has increased its IoT application ecosystem of device and systems integration partners.

New IoT industry solutions

Digital Field Service: which showcases intelligent remote monitoring, failure prediction, over-the-air repair, and dynamic technician dispatch. It features IoT Asset Monitoring Cloud, CX Service Cloud, CX Engagement Cloud, and CX Field Service Cloud, plus the use of augmented reality (AR) for guided equipment repair.

Smart Connected Factory: The solution demonstrates how incident detection, root cause analysis, and smart resolution are performed within minutes in a connected factory. It features IoT Production Monitoring Cloud, SCM Cloud and ERP Cloud, and the use of virtual reality (VR) to navigate the manufacturing floor. It can also be used for remote worker training.

Digital Fleet Management: Which showcases real-time shipment tracking, risk management, and logistics synchronization. It features IoT Fleet Management Cloud and Oracle Logistics Cloud.

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Challenge

Coresystems claims that due to the growth of IoT, field operatives need more technological expertise to meet the expectations of their customers. Fewer agents are able to meet demands of complex issues which leads to longer travel times for each technician. The company states that IoT accelerates customers’ awareness to service needs and maintenance, this in turn exacerbates the wait time between issue detection and resolution. Both companies have come together to tackle this challenge.

Solution

According to the partnership, the integration of both technologies will help service technicians determine the root cause of the issue without the need of phone calls or service ticket details. Through this integration, technicians will be able to use augmented video assistance in a comprehensive field service management platform to better understand the scope of work before going into the field, thus improving first time fix rates and decreasing onsite visit duration.

“The real-time connectivity of the IoT in a mobile first world has conditioned customers to expect faster service than ever before, putting pressure on technicians who rely on traditional service methods for issue detection, such as phone calls and/or service tickets,” said Thomas Cottereau, CEO, SightCall.

“Our partnership with Coresystems aligns perfectly with our solutions, as the coupling of our AR-powered Video Assistance with Coresystems’ crowdsourcing FSM platform provides enterprises and consumers with a rich service experience the moment they need it.”

Features

• Pre-service review: SightCall’s video assistance applies from the beginning of the service request process, and the customer can connect with the technician via video through the Coresystems platform to determine the issue to be resolved. The technician can then use the video assistance to determine the scope of work, the tools needed for repair and how much time will be needed for the project.
• On-site support: For more technically complicated issues, on-site technicians can bring in support from off-site experts using SightCall’s Video Assistance in Coresystems’ platform. An SMS link will give the off-site experts direct access to interact with the on-site technician’s camera screen, which will allow them to provide on-screen assistance with zoom, remote annotations, HD pictures and live pointer features.
• Post-work verification, assistance and training: Technicians can review recorded SightCall Video Assistance inspections for validation, maintenance and remote diagnosis in Coresystems’ platform. The remote assistance capabilities drive efficiency in training processes as well, claiming to reduce travel costs for remote experts and providing a robust, interactive training experience for technicians.

“Two key drivers for an optimal field service experience are first-time fix rate and duration of on-site visits. The Coresystems-SightCall integration uses the latest advancements in video and augmented reality functionalities to set the standard for those two criteria,” said Manuel Grenacher, CEO, Coresystems.

“Customers can expect faster issue detection and problem resolution from start to finish, resulting in better customer satisfaction and loyalty overall.”

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The new investment will enable ZingBox to meet strong demand for its IoT Guardian technology. It plans to use the additional capital to increase headcount and accelerate product capabilities, and expand market reach.

“We are honored by the support Dell Technologies Capital and Triventures have instilled in us,” said Xu Zou, Co-founder and CEO of ZingBox.

“Their faith in our device personality approach to IoT security reaffirms our vision and strategy of offering revolutionary solution designed from the ground up to address the unique security challenges of IoT.”

ZingBox IoT Guardian leverages machine learning to discover, assess risk, baseline normal behavior, detect anomalous activities and provide real-time remediation across an organization’s entire IoT footprint.

“Dell Technologies Capital invests in innovative founders and companies that can utilize our technical resources and unique go-to-market channels to bring their breakthrough technology to customers around the globe,” said Raman Khanna, Managing Director of Dell Technologies Capital.

Peter Fitzgerald, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Triventures, added, “We are thrilled to partner with ZingBox and its talented team. The company brings the right solution at the right time for healthcare organizations that need real time visibility and cyber protection to optimize operations and provide uninterrupted, quality patient care.”

ZingBox also announced it entered into a strategic partnership earlier this year with SoftBank C&S to expand the company’s global presence. SoftBank C&S is a global channel partner introducing the ZingBox IoT Guardian solution to the Japanese market and beyond.

What does the funding mean for CEO Zou? He writes on the company blog:

As we geared up for this announcement, I was asked repeatedly what this funding means to ZingBox. Here are my thoughts on the significance of this announcement:

1. It validates the market – The latest round of funding confirms what we have known for the past few years and the reason why we established ZingBox in 2014. IoT adoption is accelerating at a rapid pace. In fact, many market predictions considered to be over-estimates at the time (e.g., over 20 billion IoT devices in use by year 2020) are now considered to be conservative estimates.
2. IoT threats are real – If you are a fan of a particular TV series, you’ll know that not everyone believes “White Walkers” are real. Well, IoT threats are very real. The Mirai attack in 2016, followed by the barrage of attacks in 2017 kicked off by WannaCry ransomware, exemplifies the rapid pace of attacks we face today. These attacks are not merely targeting traditional IT assets such as PCs and laptops. They are targeting IoT devices as a way into the enterprise infrastructure or to disrupt critical services.
3. We are on the right path – Taking a new unchartered approach to IoT security is not an easy task. Others tend to take existing technologies or products that work reasonably well in the IT security world and tweak it in the hopes that it can be applied to IoT. We believe the unique new natures of IoT require a fundamentally different approach, and Machine Learning is the only way to scale up to secure all IoT. The latest round of funding reaffirms that the challenging path we took to design an IoT security solution from the ground up specifically for IoT devices was indeed the right path.

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The platform allows users to communicate in natural language on over 20 different communications channels, including SMS, email, social media, messaging, and chat platforms, without the need for a separate app. With UnificationEngine on the IBM Cloud, developers can integrate high-performance cloud services into their IT environments.

Last year, IBM and Unified Inbox collaborated to provide businesses with its IoT messaging platform using IBM Watson. The collaboration entailed IBM giving Unified Inbox, an IBM Cloud (Bluemix) partner, API and platform support.

IBM Watson was powering the natural language and conversational intelligence of UnificationEngine, which made it possible for users to communicate with their appliances. The collaboration combined the AI capabilities of IBM Watson and the human to machine IoT communications engine of Unified Inbox, in a bid to deepen conversations between people and machines.

According to Unified Inbox, Bosch is one of the companies that has started to integrate the UnificationEngine into its products. It has developed an integration of UnificationEngine into its surveillance cameras. Leveraging UnificationEngine’s unified API, its surveillance cameras can communicate with users like security officers via text messaging and videos to provide them with real-time information.

Through this integration, users are able to access a situation beforehand and plan the best course of action to address specific security situations. They can monitor crowd movements, such as queue build-ups. Using voice command or text messages, they can retrieve images and video footage from any point in time on any communications platform through SMS, social media or messaging apps.

“We’re excited to have the security, interoperability, and convenience of UnificationEngine now be available globally to users, developers, and manufacturers through the IBM Cloud catalog,” said Toby Ruckert, CEO, Unified Inbox.

“Because UnificationEngine scales with smart home, enterprise, and city solutions to make IoT solutions both frictionless and fun, we can’t wait to see what existing users like Bosch and new IBM Cloud users will create!”

According to the company, users can integrate their application with UnificationEngine by registering as a developer and entering the app’s name. The user can then add a connector and creating a user. Upon adding a connection the user can start sending UnificationEngine messages.

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The report states that whilst the sharing economy, virtual reality and the Internet of Things are all improving the traveler experience, international geo-political, social and economic developments are disrupting and polarizing the world, limiting the industry’s potential for future prosperity unless companies act now the report says.

Against this backdrop, A.T. Kearney highlights two key trends that are changing the travel industry landscape, and driving future success:

• Personalized travel experiences vs. mass market: Technology enables the aggregation of consumer data and the use of Artificial Intelligence to learn about traveler behavior. In addition, it may help to meet individual needs, instead of a more traditional one-size-fits-all approach.
• Seamless travel vs. fragmentation: Seamless travel will require governmental co-operation and data sharing between businesses, from airports and airlines to destination services such as hotels, restaurants, and ground transportation.

Based on these two key trends, Amadeus and A.T. Kearney have identified 4 future-looking world scenarios that travel companies needs to prepare for today, if they are to maximize future growth and success tomorrow:

1. The Picasso scenario is built on a fragmented world marked by the rise of populism and by heightened security concerns. This has the effect of making more travel destinations off-limits. Even so, most parts of the world enjoy economic growth. Companies invest in innovation to reach more customers through mobile channels, and this interaction enables businesses to provide more sophisticated personalized offers.
2. The Dali scenario assumes that both social attitudes and economic prosperity create a more favorable environment towards sharing data. This brings about more relaxed privacy laws and lighter regulation, which allows for greater personalization of travel. Living in the Dali scenario, travel becomes faster, cheaper, and safer. People benefit from less security controls at borders and have real-time information about unexpected events such as flight delays.
3. In the Bosch scenario, business costs rise across the industry as companies struggle to comply with a mosaic of different legal, tax, labor and data protection laws. We are confronting a fragmented world based on protectionism and distrust. Facing Bosch’s political environment, travelers seek comfort in trusted brands and book directly with well-known travel providers.
4. The Warhol scenario is characterized by seamless and not personalized travel that considers the implications of strong economic growth in Asia, giving rise to a large middle class with more dis-posable income for travel and leisure. Travellers would rather go for low cost, mass-market travel instead of having personalized options even in a world free of barriers.

“Technology has never held more promise for the travel industry. But the status quo is being turned on its head. There is widespread mistrust and populism. Things we used to take for granted, such as the right to travel across Europe without passports, for example, may be less likely in the future,” says Alex Luzarraga, Vice President Corporate Strategy, Amadeus IT Group.

“It is important to evaluate and understand, in partnership with A.T. Kearney, those issues that will continue to confront and disrupt the industry in the coming five to seven years, so we can as an industry be better prepared to deal with those issues, and also stimulate economic growth and success as a result,” Luzarraga added.

According to Yelena Ageyeva-Furman, Principal, London, A.T. Kearney, the report is based on the perspectives of a broad range of stakeholders from across the travel and technology worlds. It illustrates a broad view of the future, which allows companies to uncover their organisational blind spots. Moreover, he claims that the study tests existing plans against industry outlooks, and helps us understand ‘no regret’ moves and imperatives in company strategy.

Other key finding include:

• Travel agencies could lose business if destination service providers offer a broader range of competing services.
• Artificial intelligence has real-life applications, including the ability to predict personal preferences and push suggestions for a holiday or business trip.
• Global distribution systems will play a role as intelligent platforms that aggregate real-time, price-sensitive data from hundreds of thousands of travel providers and make them directly comparable.
• Traditional and online travel agencies will lose business as people rely more on digital assistants to organize their travel plans.
• The role of travel agencies as intermediaries could decline as travelers seek comfort in trusted brands and book directly with well-known airlines and hotels.
• Sluggish growth in the West diminishes the demand for personalized travel, but it could boost
  the sharing economy, with platforms such as HomeExchange making travel more affordable in
  this more cost-conscious context.
• The rise of travel in Asia and of Asian travelers going beyond their borders will create the need for greater collaboration between East and West.

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The company explains that by applying digital identities managed through definable policy, ioTrust allows companies to do business in new ways and create the trusted products and experiences that these environments demand.

With digital businesses striving to create new business models that turn stand-alone products into highly interactive and connected services, Entrust Datacard believes that companies are faced with a variety of challenges ranging from complicated integrations and extended deployment timelines to mitigating safety and privacy concerns.

ioTrust leverages capabilities such as identity, authentication and authorization, credential lifecycle management, and secure communications to help organizations securely connect the people, applications and devices that power the connected world. It also aims to speed deployment timelines, allowing organizations to more quickly realize business value in areas such as process optimization and automation, supply chain visibility, and delivery of new services.

“Unlike existing solutions that have been simply repurposed from IT environments, Entrust Datacard has spent several years working with customers and ecosystem partners to design a solution that recognizes the unique needs of IoT environments and incorporates sound security practices,” said Josh Jabs, Vice President of PKI and IoT, Entrust Datacard.

“We’ve created a solution that allows organizations to enhance their service offerings, improve the user experience and enable new business models while leveraging a trusted infrastructure,” Jabs added.

Capabilities of ioTrust Security Solution include:

• Enabling a secure and trusted ecosystem of people, applications and things throughout the IoT value chain
• Providing greater visibility into the security of the supply-chain, spanning from device manufacturer to the final product
• Reducing time-to-market and total cost of ownership by helping organizations to develop solutions based on heterogeneous device categories and profiles
• Empowering organizations to leverage existing infrastructures and devices, while supporting new products and services without the need to “rip and replace”
• Facilitating the secure and timely delivery of data and outcomes generated by trusted people, applications and things to the value-creation engine

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The SAP Leonardo IoT Bridge and SAP Leonardo IoT Edge will leverage advancements in Big Data and analytics, the ability to connect people, things and business with SAP Cloud Platform, and technologies such as machine learning.

SAP Leonardo IoT Bridge

SAP Leonardo IoT Bridge is a configurable role-based digital command center giving operations managers’ visibility and ability to act in real time. It claims to offer pre-configured work environments for operations professionals, based on their areas of responsibility, by bringing IoT data together with business data from underlying enterprise applications. It ties IoT and business process data together to provide intelligent business context and real-time visibility across the value chain.

One of the key feature of SAP Leonardo IoT Bridge is the ability to identify unexpected and unplanned events from IoT applications, present it contextually to the operations users and provide them with decision support, including information on trade-offs against service level agreements, cost, and other relevant factors. It also allows users to plan follow-on actions in the underlying enterprise applications by triggering a service API.

For example, if a user has installed several IoT sensors that regularly give alerts about the condition of the product, it amounts to huge amounts of data. SAP Leonardo IoT Bridge can configure these checks using the service APIs from other business systems to decide the impact before surfacing this notification to the end user.

SAP Leonardo IoT Edge

SAP claims that this software will bring compute, storage and business semantics via the cloud to where intelligent devices reside outside of the data center, for near real-time and deterministic performance of business processes. Using the container infrastructure of SAP Cloud Platform IoT services, SAP Leonardo IoT Edge is intended to seamlessly work with other line-of-business solutions.

SAP states that real-time data processing is necessary at the edge of the network where it is being generated. There is a need to capture and analyze this geographically distributed data in the form of actionable insights for better business performance. The company claims that by enabling business context and intelligence at the edge, close to where data originates, SAP Edge Services (a part of SAP Leonardo Edge) addresses latency, bandwidth and cost considerations.

When it comes to geographically distributed data, it also addresses other requirements, such as ownership, geographic regulations, and privacy. It effectively merges the power of the edge and the power of the cloud for near real-time use cases and deterministic performance of business processes.

In an official blog for SAP Edge Services, the company stated that the solution also has the ability to set and distribute policies from the cloud, so that raw data can be enriched with business context at the edge, converted into meaningful insights for decision-making, all while triggering immediate business action without requiring a round-trip to the cloud every time.

“Less than one year ago, we announced our commitment to invest and grow our IoT business. With SAP Leonardo as our digital innovation system, our new solutions and the many customers and partners demonstrating real-life use cases with us at SAP Leonardo Live, we are defining the path to digital transformation with innovation that can scale across the entire organization,” said Tanja Rueckert, President, IoT and Digital Supply Chain, SAP.

Apart from these two tools, the company has launched a host of new IoT solutions at SAP Leonardo Live, its global summit being held from July 11–12 in Frankfurt, Germany.

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According to Gartner estimates, 26 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020.

“Trend Micro’s vision has always been to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. The explosion of devices is transforming how the world works, thinks and acts. It is clear that the ecosystem is still evolving and there is work to do to ensure organizations and individuals can operate and live safely in this new reality,” said Eva Chen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Trend Micro.

The company claims that the venture will offer companies financial backing, access to its global threat intelligence, strategic alliances, as well as its channel of more than 28,000 partners.

In return, working with these investments will uncover insights into emerging ecosystem opportunities, disruptive business models, market gaps and skillset shortages. These learnings will influence Trend Micro’s cybersecurity solution planning across the company.

Chen notes that the first mega wave the company caught was the growth of the PC marketplace, and hence they committed early on to endpoint protection. The second mega wave was all about the cloud, and Trend Micro made a bet early on to securing the cloud and so far has secured over two billion workload hours on Amazon Web Services (AWS) alone. She now believes that the next wave has arrived with IoT, and the fund will help harness this opportunity.

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