AT&T, IBM combine IoT platforms

The Internet of Things is a concept that’s hovered over the public’s consciousness for some time now and there have been some meaningful developments in the industry pertaining to it. However, these developments are not good enough for cellular carriers like AT&T, which is why the company is releasing an IoT Startup kit to help make the advancements in the industry go faster.

/PRNewswire/ AT&T* is introducing an all-in-one IoT Starter Kit to help developers jumpstart their Internet of Things (IoT) projects.

The AT&T IoT developer Starter Kit is priced at just $99. In addition, IBM will bring its Watson capabilities to bear, while AT&T will provide access to its IoT platforms Flow Designer and M2X as well as AT&T Control Center and access to the AT&T network.

According to AT&T, the Starter Kit contains all the elements to help developers take advantage of 4G LTE connectivity, enabling tech innovators to create IoT solutions quickly and efficiently.

“A good example, let’s say you are running a restaurant and you want to be alerted if the refrigerator door is left open for more than five minutes”, said Chris Penrose, senior vice president, AT&T IoT Solutions, in an interview with RCR Wireless News.

The Internet of Things is creating serious new security risks. This “plug and play” model means developers no longer need to purchase technology from multiple vendors to get a new IoT project started.

An AT&T Global SIM that works in 200+ countries and territories. The AT&T IoT Starter Kit provides all the tools needed for IoT innovation, including connectivity, LTE hardware, application services, cloud storage and more.

An expandable development board that works with a wide range of plug-in sensors. It was designed as a lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport and is useful for connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and network bandwidth is at a premium.

The companies said today they will combine their cloud and IoT platforms to create tools based on open standards in an effort to help developers build and implement IoT offerings.

AT&T is also working with Avnet and Cisco to produce the starter kit.

What are your thoughts on AT&T’s Starter Kit for IoT development? The integration also would provide cloud access to AT&T’s Flow Designer and other tools so they could be used along with Watson and Bluemix development services in the cloud.

The combined suite will be hosted on IBM’s cloud, and it is claimed the main goal of the marriage to make IoT platforms more interoperable.

“Developers can connect their device data to Azure and rapidly deploy IoT applications”.