Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is expanding its Internet of Things (IoT) product line to make it easier and less expensive for companies to jump on the IoT bandwagon. Plus, it is increasing its existing Nokia partnership to include IoT products.
It’s no secret that one of the biggest obstacles to IoT is fragmentation. There is currently a variety of connectivity options and IoT protocols for companies to navigate. HPE hopes to minimize this fragmentation by becoming a Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) and reselling IoT connectivity to customers and providing all the back office functions like provisioning and billing.
In addition, HPE is adding new capabilities to its Universal IoT platform so that it can manage all MVNE devices and provide monitoring and reporting as well as analytics to customers. The new capabilities include expanded device management and interoperability for IoT devices as well as increased LoRa gateway support.
The company’s IoT platform currently supports devices that use low-power wide area (LPWA) networks like LoRa and Sigfox as well as those that use cellular networks and WiFi.
HPE is expanding its existing partnership with Nokia into the IoT area. The two firms will jointly market and sell their IoT platforms that provide asset management, automated manufacturing, as well as smart city solutions.
The HPE and Nokia partnership grew out of an alliance that was originally formed between HPE and Alcatel-Lucent in 2009 and then extended to Nokia when Nokia purchased Alcatel-Lucent. The deal encompasses many different lines of the business and so far has resulted in 25 deals and more than 30 proof-of-concepts.
The two companies also partnered back in 2014 to work on a telco cloud product that was compliant with ETSI and designed to help operators speed the deployment of network function virtualization (NFV).
HPE and Nokia say their joint IoT offering will be available in early 2017.
This isn’t the only IoT partnership HPE has inked. Earlier this year the company teamed with GE Digital to combine its hardware with GE’s IoT software platform.