Dive Brief:
- IBM and AT&T announced plans to expand their partnership to include collaboration on a number of IoT tools for developers.
- The new effort will combine IBM’s cognitive computing and cloud technology with AT&T’s connectivity capabilities.
- IBM projects that the number of IoT developers will rise to 10 million by 2020.
Dive Insight:
The two companies are also developing an IoT starter kit for developers which will eventually provide access to an "integrated toolkit" of AT&T and IBM technologies that will enable them to more easily develop IoT apps.
IBM plans to include its Watson capabilities in the project, while AT&T will provide access to its IoT platforms, the AT&T Control Center and the AT&T network.
Gartner recently predicted there will be 25 billion or more IoT devices connected to the Internet by 2020.
IBM has been making big news around IoT and investing big money in the technology. Last March, the company announced that it would invest more than $3 billion to "address the needs of clients that are looking to capitalize on the increasing instrumentation and interconnectedness of the world driven by the IoT."
The company has also opened eight new Watson IoT Client Experience Centers across Asia, Europe and the Americas.
