5 IoT Vendors You Don’t Know (And 9 You Do)

INTERNET OF THINGS WORLD — While Avnet is both the title sponsor of IoT World 2018 and a big newsmaker with its Connected Ecosystem, there are plenty of innovative, channel-focused suppliers among the more than 300 exhibitors at this Channel Partners sister show, held this week at the Santa Clara (California) Convention Center. Trying to catch the attention of the 11,000 attendees took a mix of cool IoT demos, unique swag and, for some exhibitors, massive and colorful booths.

Avnet discussed its connected ecosystem of companies, services, solutions and partners that it says provides more than 2 million customers with the tools and resources they need to bring their IoT projects to market. In his keynote opening the show, Lou Lutostanski, global vice president, internet of things for Avnet, told attendees that risks associated with IoT include business models, implementation and life-cycle management of sensors. IoT solution providers must help mitigate these risks and enable customers and partners scale up deployments.

“IoT is not about technology but about business transformation,” said Lutostanski.

Live demos at its booth include the AT&T IoT Starter Kit, a complete development environment for sensor-to-cloud applications. Attendees lined up to see the recently announced Microsoft Azure Sphere, a new solution for creating highly secure, internet-connected microcontroller-powered devices, in action. Avnet is Microsoft’s lead partner for Azure Sphere and the first to distribute the product, which launched at RSA 2018. The solution aims to simplify IoT projects by combining three components that work together to secure and power devices at the edge: a variety of microcontrollers with security baked into the silicon; the Azure Sphere OS, which is built on a Linux kernel; and a cloud-based service that includes device-to-device and device-to-cloud communication secured through certificate-based authentication.

The expansive expo floor featured two stages and channel-focused suppliers covering the gamut from sensor hardware to platforms to connectivity. Watch the event highlight videos, then scroll through our gallery below for some familiar names, and five providers you might not have on your IoT radar.

Avnet

"Avnet offers an unmatched ecosystem of products and services to help customers overcome obstacles related to IoT,” said Lutostanski in his keynote.

The distributor demonstrated that with three hands-on experience areas at its booth, showcasing solutions for the industrial, retail and health-care verticals. The booth also had areas to showcase partnerships with Intel, Dell EMC, Infineoan and others.

Asavie

Asavie’s partner program is for mobile network operators, resellers, MSPs, OEM manufacturers and system integrators. The company specializes in IoT connectivity and mobile security, and just before IoT World it announced a deal with Vodaphone Ireland to use Asavie Moda to provide a service for SMEs to protect and control employees’ mobile-device usage and aid in GDPR compliance.

At its booth, the company highlighted a project to securely connect lottery terminals in real time.

Cloudera

Cloudera’s channel program is attractive for partners serving the health-care vertical thanks to the popularity of the company’s cloud-optimized for machine learning and analytics platform with health care and life-sciences organizations. The platform can be used to monitor medical device, IoT and vitals data in real-time; while there was no health-care-specific track at this year’s IoT World, sessions on the topic were often standing-room only.

Cradlepoint

Cradlepoint has a focus on IoT for first-responders and state and local government, and highlighted that 100 percent of U.S. states and territories have opted in to the First Responders Network Authority (FirstNet) for interoperable wireless broadband. While not a focus at the show, it just announced its participation in RingCentral’s connectivity partner program.

Ericsson

In tandem with IoT World, Ericsson released an Exploring IoT Strategies study based on research and interviews with 20 leading global IoT service providers.

No surprise to partners, the report finds that providers are focused on building new services on top of their networks. Popular IoT offerings include cellular and non-cellular IoT network-integration services and device life-cycle management for enterprise customers. Ericsson also announced a successful test of 4G LTE technology over Citizen Broadband Radio Service on the Verizon network.

GetWireless

GetWireless brought another of its branded mini-vehicles to give away at IoT World. Hopefully shipping is included.

Globalgig

From its position next to the IoT World Futurist Stage, Globalgig’s booth was a prime location to hear about innovative uses of IoT. Its branded cowbells were also a popular giveaway.

The company has only had its channel program up and running since January, but partners with IoT ambitions should check out its broad IoT and M2M portfolio, with smart city, mobility and other solutions that can be controlled from a central management portal.

Google

Google featured its Google Cloud Platform at IoT World. The company scored a win this week with the announcement that Twitter is moving its cold data storage and flexible compute Hadoop clusters from its own data centers onto the Google Cloud Platform.

As we reported, Google also recently beefed up security across its cloud products portfolio.

Juniper

At IoT World, Juniper Networks focused on IoT security. Besides its message on segmenting the network and endpoints, the company is working to help the low-power wide-area networks that carry IoT data from devices such as water meters and smoke detectors manage the processing demands around security.

... and now for five you don't know ...

Artik

Artik is Samsung’s end-to-end IoT platform. With Artik, partners or solution providers can bring together hardware, software, cloud and security to develop IoT products quickly. The booth features hands-on demos of hardware to provide facial and voice recognition and navigation.

Black Duck

Black Duck brought an entire paddle of its signature waterfowl. The company provides application security, software development and open-source software management products, and its go-to-market partner program includes resellers, MSPs and auditors.

ClearBlade

ClearBlade’s IoT World presentations and booth are all about security at the IoT edge. It also announced at the show that it has been named a "cool vendor" in IoT platforms by Gartner.

Mocana

Mocana announced a partnership with Verizon to simplify IoT security by integrating Mocana’s endpoint security software solution, Mocana TrustPoint, with Verizon’s ThingSpace platform for IoT device connectivity, management, security and analytics. With its roots in military-grade tech, Mocana works mainly with SIs to protect industrial control systems and smart connected devices. Its focus is industrial manufacturing, aerospace, defense, utilities, oil and gas and transportation companies.

Striim

Striim had a popular raffle giveaway — a sealed box of gadgets including Star Wars items. The company also had continual education.

Striim’s products address IoT data management and analytics challenges so businesses can generate insights from a variety of sensors; besides OEM and alliance partners, it has reseller ops.