The internet of 10 million things

From 0 to 10,000,000 in roughly 10 years: What better way to express a landmark achievement by an IoT company than in ones and zeros? In this case it is the number of devices that Bosch Software Innovations and its customers have connected to the Bosch IoT Suite to date, in more than 250 IoT projects around the world. This number went up by around 20 percent between 2018 and 2019 alone.

More than ten million devices is convincing proof that we have come a long way along the road to connecting the physical and virtual world. Bosch will continue this journey together with its customers and partners.

Stefan Ferber, CEO of Bosch Software Innovations

The open and flexible software platform provides the technological basis for applications in the Internet of Things. The more than ten million connected “things” include gateways in buildings, connected vehicles, and sensors in urban infrastructure or digital agriculture. The Bosch subsidiary’s playing field extends across the following growth areas for digitalization: agriculture, buildings, retail, energy, mobility, and manufacturing. “More than ten million devices is convincing proof that we have come a long way along the road to connecting the physical and virtual world. Bosch will continue this journey together with its customers and partners,” says Stefan Ferber, CEO of Bosch Software Innovations.

Advocated: Market leaders opt for the Bosch IoT Suite
One of our customers in the agricultural sector is HOLMER Maschinenbau, the world’s leading provider of self-propelled combine sugar-beet harvesters. The company, headquartered near Regensburg in Germany, has developed a remote diagnosis and maintenance package for its machines called EasyHelp 4.0. HOLMER based its solution on Bosch hardware, software, and services. Bosch IoT Insights, the Bosch IoT Suite’s data management service, is a central element of this solution. HOLMER uses it to process machine data and visualize the information on a custom-designed dashboard.

Another customer who has chosen to work with the Bosch IoT Suite is MANN+HUMMEL. This company specializes in filtration technology and develops products and solutions to promote clean air and the sustainable use of water. In Asia, the Bosch IoT Suite helps MANN+HUMMEL to develop applications for monitoring filter systems in the field.

EnBW is an energy provider based in Karlsruhe, Germany. Its SMIGHT initiative was launched to develop solutions for connected urban infrastructures. One of the first products to emerge from this initiative was a multipurpose streetlight with integrated environmental sensors, a charging point for electric vehicles, and a Wi-Fi hotspot. Other SMIGHT projects included developing a system for monitoring the occupation of parking spaces using in-ground sensors, which allows municipalities to assess and optimize their parking facilities. To bring all of these projects together on a single IoT platform, a unique SMIGHT solution was developed based on the Bosch IoT Suite.

The list of customers goes on and on, and includes companies such as Deutsche Telekom, The Yield, Ponsse, Hager, Busch-Jaeger, and Amdocs – as well as numerous group-internal customers including the Bosch Rexroth subsidiary in the U.S. and Bosch Japan.

Accoladed: Analysts and users concur on the positive advantages of the Bosch IoT Suite
Not only users but also analysts rate the platform very highly. PAC, a member of the teknowlogy Group, the leading independent European market research and consulting firm in the IT sector, rated the Bosch IoT Suite as “best in class” for device management. To simulate the widest possible range of IoT scenarios, the Bosch solution supports all common types of device connectivity and communication protocols. In the teknowlogy Group’s IoT User Survey 2019, users awarded top marks to the Bosch IoT platform for security and said they were very willing to recommend the software to others.

Augmented functionality: Bosch adheres to a hybrid-cloud and open-source strategy
The services provided by the Bosch IoT Suite are integrated in the cloud environments that most customers prefer for their projects. Apart from the Bosch IoT Cloud, they also include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and – in China – the Huawei Cloud. The cloud providers and Bosch work together as partners to develop scalable IoT business models for their shared customers, with each contributing their respective business and technology skills.

We firmly believe that open-source communities are the key to success in the IoT because a global Internet of Things can only be created on the basis of industry-wide, joint projects.

Stefan Ferber, CEO of Bosch Software Innovations

The Bosch IoT Suite is built using open-source software. Bosch is a strategic member of the Eclipse Foundation and participates in numerous open-source projects managed by the Eclipse IoT Working Group. These projects form the technological core around which the Bosch IoT Suite is built. “We firmly believe that open-source communities like the Eclipse IoT Working Group are the key to success in the IoT because a global Internet of Things can only be created on the basis of industry-wide, joint projects,” says Ferber, who represents Bosch on the Eclipse Foundation Board of Directors.