Dell has unveiled its own IoT partner program aimed at closing the market’s interoperability gap by targeting IT and OT organisations and creating a unifying IoT strategy.
To launch the IoT Solutions Partner Program, the company has brought along 25 other industry heavy-weights including GE, Microsoft, OSlsoft, SAP, PTC’s ThingWorx and Software AG.
The idea is to build an ecosystem of partners that will help customers identify the right technologies to develop, deploy and maintain their own IoT solutions while using them in the "fragmented IoT landscape".
Under the program, Dell will combine a global multi-tiered (Executive, Associate, Registered) network of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with its portfolio of IoT assets.
The company’s IoT assets include gateways and embedded PCs, security and manageability tools, data centre and cloud infrastructure, and data integration and analytics software like Boomi and Statistica.
Andy Rhodes, executive director of commercial IoT solutions at Dell, told CBR in January that partners are one of the company’s main focus for the IoT space in 2016, alongside gateways and standards.
He also confirmed to CBR that that there will be different UK-based partners, "some of them can be very small, and they are very regional and specific. These regional firms bring the operational expertise".
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Under the new partner program, the company is targeting different industries including industrial and building automation and transportation.
The creation of use cases showcasing the benefits of IoT will be one of the ways the company will be working with the partners.
Rhodes also said that 2016 will be the year of use cases across the industry and not just at Dell. "2016 is the year you move from hype to ‘let’s prove this stuff out; show me there is value in the hype; show me it works outside the lab," he said.
Caglayan Arkan, GM worldwide manufacturing at Microsoft, said: "Microsoft is continuing its work with Dell across our offerings for every IoT scenario, from the Azure IoT Suite to Windows 10 on the Dell Edge Gateways.
"Our collaboration will help both companies to ensure that our customers receive a world-class ecosystem of devices and services and time to production at industry-leading speeds."
