Intel Bolsters IoT Platform With Bevy Of New Hardware, Software Products

Intel Tuesday deepened its stake in the developing Internet of Things market by unveiling new hardware and software products tied to its IoT reference architecture platform.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company released new products for its IoT platform including low-power silicon Intel Quark processors; two free cloud-connected multi-architecture operating systems, Wind River Rock and Wind River Pulsar Linux; and an open-source project, Trusted Analytics Platform, for secure big data analytics applications in cloud environments.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich told the audience during the company's special event in San Francisco that Intel is focusing on standardizing existing connected devices so they can be integrated into a standard cloud and built into an analytics platform, as opposed to targeting disconnected devices.

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"We've made a major addition to our reference architecture platform for smart devices that are already connected ... allowing you to secure intelligence from end to end," said Krzanich. "For example, you could have a smart valve that is already automated but doesn't go into the cloud, or have a common set of APIs that go with common standards. This helps you integrate connected devices and bring them up into a standard cloud and build the analytics platform with them."

On the processor front, the Intel Quark SE SoC and Intel Quark microcontroller D1000 and D2000 offer extended temperature and have long life capabilities. While Intel's previous Atom processor was targeted at wearables, the new Quark processors enable pattern-matching capabilities for devices so that they can recognize various motions and vibrations.

At the software level, the company is rolling out a comprehensive cloud suite of Software-as-a-Service products as well as the cloud-connected operating systems Wind River Rocket and Wind River Pulsar Linux.

Wind River Rocket is targeted at applications running on 32-bit MCUs, while Wind River Pulsar Linux is focused on building gateways for industrial controllers. According to Intel, SAP will be the first company to utilize these products as part of its new IoT solution in the enterprise.

Intel's Trusted Analytics Platform, meanwhile, specializes in a range of industries including health care, retail and industrial and integrates with the Intel IoT Platform reference architecture for data management, protocol abstraction, workload distribution and compute.

Hilary Tomasson, vice president of marketing at Eurotech, a Columbia, Md.-based Intel partner specializing in IoT retail-based solutions, said Eurotech utilizes Intel's high-end processors to create multiservice gateways.

"Intel is so involved with the Internet of Things it wasn’t a surprise to see products in all these different areas," said Tomasson. "Intel's new processors, software for developers, data analytics and security features are important. It shows Intel understands the pieces coming together for IoT solutions. We're always happy to see these advancements and pull them into our portfolio."

The Intel Quark microcontroller D1000 is available Tuesday, while the Intel Quark microcontroller D2000 will be available by the end of the year. The Intel Quark SE SoC for IoT will be available in the first half of 2016, according to Intel.

Intel has invested in the IoT market over the past year through new products, partnerships and solutions. The company's product line in the space has strengthened over the past year, with its IoT Group revenue increasing 10 percent from the same quarter last year to $581 million in the third quarter of 2015.

PUBLISHED NOV. 3, 2015