IoT & Embedded Technology Blog

On August 8, France-based security technology provider Gemalto announced a definitive agreement to acquire US-based firm SafeNet for US$890 million. Gemalto’s press release can be seen here, so we won’t rehash all the details in this blog post. However, we will provide a few comments regarding the potential synergies between the companies in the IoT/M2M market. Read more

Widely reported during the first week of August was the revelation that a group of Russian hackers known as CyberVor had amassed a database of 1.2 billion usernames and passwords, as well as more than 500 million email addresses. The New York Times originally broke the story, based on findings from the firm Hold Security. Unlike the Target retail data breach of late 2013 and the more recent eBay breach, CyberVor’s loot is not the result of one or two large breaches, but rather a large number of breaches of all sizes. Hold Security says that the data came from 420,000 websites, ranging from large household-name dotcoms down to small sites. Most of the sites were breached using SQL injection techniques through malware infecting the computers of unwitting legitimate users. Read more

As the hype and potential for the Internet of Things (IoT) continue to grow, we wanted to address some of the key issues concerning device interoperability and developer collaboration. Specifically, we will be looking at some of the most important communications protocols for the IoT today and how industry players are preparing for the future. A communications protocol is an established system of rules that spells out the specific details for a type of communication between devices. This is distinct from a communications standard, which protocols are built upon and serve as a regular format to enable interoperability. Read more

Agile2014 is organized by the Agile Alliance, and it is intended to promote the principles of Agile and serve as an opportunity for all of the foremost experts and innovators in the field to come together. The conference boasts over 240 talks and workshops across 16 program tracks and over 1,800 attendees. Read more

The indisputable rise of connectivity prompted by the Internet of Things across industries will spur strong demand for gateway devices to bridge potentially thousands of sensors, machines, or other products per device to the internet or cloud for years to come. Consequently, the gateway has access to a trove of potentially sensitive and valuable data. An M2M/intelligent gateway is therefore a major security asset or liability, dependent on OEMs’ efforts to prevent current and emerging threats from afflicting host networks, or the device itself. Embedded security will be vital to the success of current and future M2M gateway solutions. Read more

The requirements of the devices composing the Internet of Things are changing rapidly. The embedded market no longer consists of dedicated-purpose devices that may or may not be connected. Engineering organizations and deploying enterprises must now design scalable system topologies that can integrate new devices and adapt to the IoT’s evolution. While these next-generation systems are required to facilitate downstream device/node management as well as efficient upstream data transfer and analytics, they must also do so dynamically, allowing for more intelligence and flexibility in node role and workloads within sub-network architectures. Read more

PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Atego, a leading developer of model-based systems and software engineering applications based in the UK, for $50 million in cash. The transaction is expected to be completed in PTC’s fiscal fourth-quarter 2014, which begins in July. According to PTC’s press release, Atego had approximately $20 million in revenue over the course of the past 12 months, and the company expects it will achieve approximately $5 million in revenue from Atego in PTC’s fiscal fourth-quarter 2014.  Read more

This month’s major data breach news comes courtesy of hackers who accessed eBay’s user database by using valid credentials pilfered from eBay employees. The hackers apparently had access to eBay’s entire database of 145 million active users during the months of February and March 2014. The information accessed included passwords in encrypted form, as well as names, email addresses, shipping addresses, and dates of birth all in plain text. Read more

VDC just recently completed an in-depth analysis into the use and trends around Agile and DevOps methods in the embedded systems market. It is an exciting space with a number of dynamic changes underway as OEMs investigate new ways to improve the overall efficiency of systems development in the face of pressing time-to-market, process standard, and complexity challenges. We have a lot of compelling findings that demonstrate the growing use of Agile, DevOps, and other collaborative approaches across the embedded landscape. Read more

This year’s Axeda Connexion conference in Boston was full of interesting and insightful ideas and views of the future of M2M communications and the Internet of Things. A variety of global enterprises sponsored the event and contributed to various keynotes and sessions including AT&T, Broadcom, Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Oracle, Salesforce, Wipro, and many more. The Internet of Things will have a major impact on traditional business models for embedded hardware players, software vendors, service providers, network operators – everyone throughout the value chain. The change for end users will be as much cultural as it will be technological. Read more