Sometimes the signs of change are more obvious than others.
When a spokesperson for the Linux Foundation calls to talk about an open source contribution from Microsoft into the Qualcomm-driven AllSeen Alliance that’s about bridging older industrial automation standards into the sexy new world of IOT, you know something must be happening.
And so it is.
Today, these interesting bedfellows are announcing the release of the AllJoyn Device System Bridge (DSB), a Microsoft-created open source addition to AllJoyn that incorporates an overall framework for bridging specialized and/or proprietary protocols into AllJoyn, and specifically includes two example “bridges.” One is designed to communicate with older building automation systems using BACnet, and the other is for connecting to existing ZWave-based smart lighting and other home automation products. This work extends Microsoft’s previously announced intention to build AllJoyn support into Windows 10.
As I’ve written about in the past (here and here), it’s a lot easier to talk in theory about making everything connect to everything than it is to actually do it. Then again, there is the question of whether or not that ought to be the right goal. The truth is, to make IOT really start to happen, all we need is to get enough of the right things to talk to enough of the other right things (albeit, in a secure manner). So, I’m encouraged by efforts that—in theory, at least—look to make it possible to try and connect more devices together.
Within the enterprise world—where I continue to believe there’s a significantly larger real money opportunity for IOT—there are hundreds of different verticals that have essentially been engaging in IOT-like applications for some time. In the past, this was called embedded computing or industrial computing or command-and-control systems or a whole host of other unsexy-sounding names. But now, they’ve been sprinkled with the pixie dust of IOT and, suddenly, they’re a hot, cool topic.
The problem is that, because they tended to be industry or solution-specific, most people didn’t worry about whether one type of system could talk to another. Now, however, there’s interest in making that happen—partially because of the fact that analytics tools are becoming available that might be able to convert the output from some of these systems into actionable information (though it’s not always the case). So, again, developments that can help bridge these different worlds could prove to be very beneficial.[pullquote]The optimist in me hopes that developments like AllJoyn DSB can help overcome the technical and political challenges of IOT, but the realist in me thinks that’s probably too idealistic.”[/pullquote]
In the smart home and consumer world, the challenge of interconnecting across different companies’ products and standards also exists, but it takes a slightly different form. Frankly, the challenges for the consumer IOT market are tougher, in that any solution has to be made incredibly easy. For commercial applications, you can count on experienced programmers to help make the various devices work together, whereas that’s obviously unacceptable in the consumer market.
Speaking of programmers, in case you were wondering the motivation behind Microsoft’s effort, it turns out this DSB extension for AllJoyn will enable Microsoft’s faithful Visual Studio customers to extend their skill sets beyond Windows applications into building apps for the red-hot world of IOT. Smart.
The optimist in me hopes that developments like AllJoyn DSB can help overcome not only the technical challenges of interconnecting the currently separated islands of IOT activity, but also some of the many political challenges from intra-industry battles that have kept IOT from moving forward at a faster pace. The realist in me thinks that’s probably too idealistic. Nevertheless, the creation of physical and “metaphysical” bridges across the IOT archipelago has got to be seen as movement in the right direction.
Sorry, I do not understand why all of a sudden Microsoft is an open source SW. Yes, Qualcomm is pretty much a standard for mobile, but I am not aware of any alliances to Microsoft.
Yes, enterprise software is a big opportunity even though a consumer software proposal sits on the table. And what is AllJoyn?
There are many questions being unanswered, but for the time being let’s celebrate the creation of bridges across two continents.
There is a Microsoft website about their work at making their ~500 acre with ~125 buildings smart. Rather than rip out everything and start with a clean architecture, they integrated the mix of systems they had built in the previous 25 years. They had everything from 25 year old systems to brand-new. Nothing wanted to talk with the other.
With a team of smart programmers, they were able to build these system bridges. The website is at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stories/88acres/88-acres-how-microsoft-quietly-built-the-city-of-the-future-chapter-1.aspx .
I don’t have any internal information about why they’ve made the decision to embrace open source for some of their code.
I imagine they looked at the cost benefit of it. Someone probably noticed that they have sold a lot of server licenses to companies that have buildings. This provides a way to provide extra value and help those machines continue to run some version of Microsoft software.
Maybe there can also be a friction reduction for their future buildings. Getting the building equipment vendors to start using these bridges will make them work better with Microsoft’s infrastructure.
There is also Microsoft’s push into IoT. It will probably never be a huge business for them, but it can help them provide a more complete solution.
Corporations tend to buy their Microsoft licenses on a per company basis and the payment is recurring for Microsoft. Giving the companies a stronger reason to renew those volume licenses is good business for Microsoft.
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