HCL, IBM tie up for Internet of Things solutions

HCL Technologies is partnering with IBM to jointly develop Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. The companies will set up an incubation centre at Noida to develop solutions that will initially cater to the industrial and manufacturing and smart facilities verticals.

The solutions developed will be focused around 'Connected Products and Operations' such as remote monitoring, smart inventory management, smart buildings and facilities management.

The news comes after IBM announced a separate business unit for IoT. IBM also appointed former CEO of Thomas Cook Group Harriet Green as general manager of the new IoT division. The unit will comprise more than 2,000 consultants, researchers and developers that take advantage of IBM's Watson, analytics, and cloud, helping clients unlock value in new insights.

As part of the partnership, HCL and IBM will combine their technical know-how and manpower to enable seamless integration of device, connectivity, data platform and analytics for organisations to address some of the most complex enterprise and industrial IoT challenges.

''Building an extensive ecosystem around the Internet of Things is imperative to the success of all complex Internet of Things client solutions,'' said Chris O'Connor, general manager of Offerings, Internet of Things, IBM. ''Combining HCL's IoT design capabilities in hardware and platforms with IBM IoT Foundation platform will result in a capability that generates new value across every segment we are targeting.''

''The intersection of employees, data and technology enabled intelligent machines is creating fundamental shifts in enterprise business models, leading to not only increased productivity and efficiency but also opening a plethora of new revenue opportunities for companies,'' said Sukamal Banerjee, executive vice president, engineering & R&D services, and head of IoT business at HCL Technologies.

''Our partnership with IBM will create new solutions and replicable use cases and POCs to enable accelerated adoption of IoT within and across industries.''