Bosch building own cloud service based in Germany
11 Mar 2016
Bosch is building its own cloud service based in Germany, and the goal of Bosch IoT Cloud is the company's electronics to be IoT-enabled by 2020, Reuters reported.
Bosch is offering an end-to-end environment to get homes communicating with the various devices and appliances inside.
According to Bosch there were already some five million devices working with its also generically named "IoT Suite". For now there are various gadgets designed to get homes talking including a central hub and things like door-and-window contact sensors. Nothing special, but they were the staples for anything resembling a smart home.
Reuters said that Bosch planned to bring around 50 of its own applications into IoT Cloud in 2016, with it granting other companies access next year. Also in the future Germany would not be the only data centre location.
Meanwhile, connected industry was now becoming an international reality, with Bosch, in a new project, working together with partners to combine the technical standards of Germany's ''Industrie 4.0'' platform and of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) for the first time.
The combination of the two approaches allows the exchange of data between central areas of connected industry. ''Industry 4.0 is not so much a national as an international issue. Only a truly global approach – without competing company standards or differing national regulations – will allow it to develop to its full potential,'' said Dr Werner Struth, a member of the Bosch management board, at the Bosch ConnectedWorld IoT conference in Berlin.
The lack of a common language had so far been a hindrance to the smooth international coordination of manufacturing, logistics, and building and energy management. ''As we head towards connected industry, two worlds are now coming together. This is a major advance. A combination of these two standards paves the way for numerous new cross-border business opportunities for Industry 4.0 solutions, both for Bosch and for other international companies,'' Struth said.