As of today, the industrial IoT arena has just changed forever. Today IBM and Bosch announced a global collaboration which combines the power of open standards-based Watson Internet of Things (IoT) with Bosch IoT Suite’s capabilities, enabling clients to securely and efficiently update IoT devices at large scale via the IBM Cloud.

Enabling agile development of software, hardware and hardware-related components

Updating hardware and software securely might seem like an everyday occurrence, until you factor in millions of devices across an extensive ecosystem of partners, suppliers and customers. The Bosch “IoT Rollouts” service, now available on IBM Cloud and integrated with the Watson IoT Platform, provides IBM Watson IoT clients with access to Bosch’s industry-leading device and firmware management capabilities for managing and updating connected devices.

With more than 20 billion connected devices around the world today, customers expect their devices to stay up to date with the latest features and performance improvements. Via its IoT Suite, Bosch provides the “IoT Rollouts” service for advanced device management and over the air software updates to millions of devices in a managed fashion.

The IBM Watson IoT Platform delivers a fully managed, IBM cloud-hosted platform for managing and understanding IoT devices, sensors and gateways, with services around device connectivity, analytics, risk management and data storage.

Integrated worldwide cloud footprint drives new innovation

Bosch clients now have access to IBM Cloud and Watson IoT Platform capabilities, backed by the scale and flexibility of cloud, in addition to privacy and security, enabling Bosch to integrate existing and new services and data to help clients drive new innovations.

For example, via the IBM Cloud, auto manufacturers can now schedule and organize software updates to millions of vehicles in a managed fashion to ensure a vehicle’s functions are updated, corrected and/or improved securely and efficiently without requiring the vehicle to come into a workshop. A white goods manufacturer can remotely send updates to batches of thousands of washing machines and dryers, ensuring consumers have access to the latest updates, services and offerings, including automatic reordering of detergent, for example.

IBM will also provide Bosch with its IBM Cloud platform for application development and testing to enable hosting of more Bosch services in the future and to provide Bosch with a worldwide cloud footprint for solution delivery.

Standing on the shoulders of open standards and open source

To underscore the shared commitment to partnership, Bosch will collocate a team of researchers at the IBM Watson IoT global headquarters in Munich, Germany, where the two companies will jointly research and develop innovations for connected products and devices.

IBM and Bosch share the view that IoT will succeed through open standards and open source, and as such, the two companies will continue to work together in Eclipse, OASIS, the IIC and the Linux Foundation to further adoption in key areas, including IoT communications with MQTT, device management with LWM2M and visual tooling with Node-RED.

Learn more

You can learn more about how IBM is collaborating with clients and partners in our new Munich Internet of Things Headquarters, by following the tag ‘Genius of Things‘ on the blog.