Smart Business Blog

While it has been well established that smarter products and smarter networks can offer extraordinary business advantage to the companies that manufacture devices and the partners that develop applications and deliver systems support, complexities have thwarted wide scale adoption in many if not most instances. In the wireless network arena, CDMA and GSM-based technologies have been incompatible with one another when seen through the eyes of M2M enterprise customers and developers. Globally, GSM has become the technology of choice and yet CDMA-based Verizon Wireless is North America’s largest wireless carrier with a strong record for network performance. LTE is on the horizon but this won’t solve today’s mainstream M2M needs.  What most adopters of wireless M2M technology desire is a seamless interface to both network standards that supports a truly global reach and/or strength in domestic network coverage.

Device OEMs have innovated in many ways, some to the point of extending their own cloud platforms for managing connected devices. Still, enterprise customers have demonstrated time and again a preference toward maintaining a neutral position with respect to hardware and devices so that they can remain agile and flexible and meet the dynamic needs of their businesses. Cloud platform application providers have developed advanced device management and vertical applications in certain cases, and yet still remain relatively small niche businesses when viewed in the context of the whole global M2M opportunity.

The next chapter in the M2M arena will be driven by platform innovation -- cloud services, intelligent devices and back office systems that seamlessly integrate with one another and thereby unlock the full potential of smart connected devices. New machine-to-machine (M2M) solution platforms need to address the true potential for information-driven service innovation and application development. By embedding support automation directly into the fabric of the solution and providing tools for third party application development, new platform technologies can help product manufacturers leverage the continuously evolving relationship between connected products and customer value. Harbor has written a new White Paper that highlights the expanding value of platform innovation for M2M solutions.

This white paper was motivated by the upcoming introduction of a new M2M developer program from nPHase called nPhase ONE. This new offering provides advanced M2M capabilities for device OEMs, application developers, and enterprise customers that addresses four key innovation objectives:

1. Remove Complexities of Disparate Networks, Device Configurations, and Applications: Platform architecture engineered to remove complexities of disparate systems (such as CDMA and GSM), configurations, and applications which nets simplicity, speed to market, and reduced costs for customers and partners.

2. Enable Remote Access To Device & Network Diagnostics: Tools that extract and store the vast amount of data available through a diagnostic interface on cellular modem chipsets for troubleshooting and analytics coupled with device-side APIs that enable third party on-device applications to enable intelligent connection decisions and to participate in device connectivity diagnostics.

3. Simplify and Accelerate Application Development: Tools for third party application development that simplifies and speeds the design and development of sensor monitor¬ing and reporting applications for physical IO and serial protocols such as Modbus.

4. Provide Standards-Compliant Interfaces Engineered Specifically For Developers: Standards-compliant SOAP XML web services that offer integrators a single, portable and easy-to-use interface across disparate networks and devices providing device controls, session management and device software configuration management, ultimately shielding developers from the underlying complexity of wireless network infrastructures.

The adoption of M2M systems has been challenged with many unforeseen barriers. The nPhase ONE developer program holds the potential to change the entire structure of value delivery, alter long-standing business models, and prompt all participants to consider how to design new modes of service delivery and build new relationships with customers and with developers.

Download the New White Paper on M2M Platform Innovations Here.