IBM and AT&T partner to enhance IoT app development

The race to become a major player in the IoT continues to heat up. In a move to win over IoT developers, IBM and AT&T announced on July 13 a partnership that will combine IBM’s Watson IoT platform and other services with AT&T’s IoT platforms to provide developers with tools to quickly, easily, and securely create IoT apps.

“This collaboration enables individual developers to tap the power of cognitive computing and combine it with massive amounts of data streaming from billions of connected devices, sensors and systems to create solutions that can help transform businesses and society alike,” said Harriet Green, general manager, IBM Watson IoT, Commerce & Education.

Developers will be able to leverage the analytics and machine learning capabilities of IBM’s Watson with AT&T’s Flow Designer, a cloud-based tool that lets developers easily create and deploy IoT apps, according to the announcement.

“From farming to fleets, there are many companies that would benefit from real, actionable IoT data,” said Chris Penrose, senior vice president, AT&T IoT Solutions.

To help developers meet that demand, the new tools will be based on open standards to help developers avoid a learning curve and improve their skills. The two companies are also developing a starter toolkit that will combine their technologies to let developers start IoT projects right away.

The announcement follows AT&T’s July 12 news that it plans to pilot CAT-M1 network technologies later this year to help businesses reduce costs and improve device performance for IoT deployments.

In June, IBM revealed the creation of a cloud-based real-time analytics hub for data scientists that uses Apache Spark and is intended to increase their collaboration with developers and hasten the development of applications.

Related:

Who Holds the Keys to IoT? Developers

The IoT Meets Real-Time Data Analytics

Special Report: Artificial Intelligence and the IoT