ThingWorx Blog

This past week ThingWorx took home top honors at the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) Enterprise Awards.  ThingWorx was awarded the 2013 Technology Startup of the Year, which was awarded for new product innovation and the success we’ve achieved to date.  The tremendous success we’ve achieved over the past few years has been outstanding, and we are honored to receive this recognition from PACT – a premier resource for emerging growth companies, investors, advisors, and technology corporations involved in the technology and life sciences industries.

More information is available here.

We are happy to announce our new partnership with Industrial Networking Solutions (INS), a recognized leader in providing network products and engineering services for the industrial marketplace.

INS represents another important step in the expansion of our rapidly growing ecosystem and will enable ThingWorx-based M2M solutions to be delivered even more efficiently and reliably.  We look forward to continued mutual success with INS!

More information on this partnership is available here.

This week we announced the availability of Version 4.0 of the ThingWorx Platform.  The new features available in 4.0 continue to improve on the 10X speed advantage ThingWorx has had over traditional development platforms – helping to reduce the cost, time, and risk associated with building Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

As one of our customers recently put it – “Being able to provide M2M solutions to customers in days, rather than weeks or months, is a huge benefit … and allows us to penetrate the market in ways that were previously impossible.”

And we are not resting there.  Our strategy team is huddled together this week planning the next version and “next big thing”.  Stay tuned …

Yesterday, Connected World Magazine announced that ThingWorx has earned a spot on the Connected World 100 for demonstrating significant market traction and game-changing technology in the M2M space. The Connected World 100 recognizes the most important and influential providers in M2M and connected devices, chosen from hundreds of firms, both private and publicly traded, based on sales and earnings growth, contribution to the connected-devices space, and innovation in multiple markets served during the past 12 months.

We are honored to be selected as a top company. This recognition is yet another feather in the cap for us this year as we continue to grow and expand. We’ve already received awards and recognition from Frost and Sullivan, Gartner, Postscapes, and the Connected World Value Chain Award for Remote Service, as well as the best example of recognition: our growing customer list.

We set out to disrupt the market in 2012 and establish ourselves as the platform of choice for companies looking to accelerate the development of next generation applications for the connected world.  Today, our revolutionary Mashup Builder is changing the way companies are innovating and extending their business to include connected devices.  And ThingWorx version 3.0, for example, brought search to the world of connected devices.  These innovative features are being utilized by our customers to drive value in markets such as smart agriculture, manufacturing, medical devices, smart cities, and utilities.

Stay tuned for more exciting news and announcements from ThingWorx!

A recent article on ReadWriteWeb discussed how the next phase of the Internet will be about connecting “things”, and how the Internet of Things (IoT) will become embedded in our daily lives.  There has been some debate on the pace of its progression, but at ThingWorx, we believe the time is now, and we are already seeing the positive impact of IoT applications within our growing customer base.

To date, building out IoT solutions has been filled with friction – from certifying radios, to provisioning, standing up device clouds, and building the final application. Today, I see the IoT market starting to cross the chasm – this is being made possible by two factors:

1. Simplified connectivity/provisioning/data access
2. The introduction of application platforms designed for building IoT applications

That is where ThingWorx comes in – we have “sorted out” the application building aspect of the IoT and offer a platform that reduces this part of the solution effort by 5X to 10X.  Making apps easier to build spurs innovation – a key requirement for making the promise of the IoT a reality.   You can see solutions built on ThingWorx in smart agriculture, smart cities, remote assets servicing, smart grid, smart manufacturing, etc. on our website.

We are excited about the direction we are heading in, and stay tuned for more from ThingWorx.   Over the next 4 months there will be significant announcements in this space supporting the idea that IoT adoption is accelerating.

We are pleased to announce an integration partnership with nFocal, a recognized leader in providing system and software engineering services the M2M solutions space.

Our solution delivery model includes partnering with leading companies and leverage their domain expertise and proven success in delivering innovative solutions to our mutual customers. With this partnership, nFocal provides that superior level of domain expertise that helps us scale our business while providing solutions that give our customers a competitive advantage.  We look forward to working with nFocal to facilitate seamless integration of the ThingWorx platform into the existing business systems of our expanding customer base.

The full press release is available at http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/7/prweb9718763.htm

ThingWorx is pleased to congratulate our customer Sysmex, a global leader in the design and development of medical diagnostic instrumentation and clinical information systems, for its Gold Value Chain award win at the 2012 Connected World Conference.

The awards, sponsored by Connected World Magazine,  recognize successful adopters of M2M technology and connected devices, as determined by a panel of industry experts and analysts. The awards highlight collaboration across the M2M value chain, recognizing companies that have integrated multiple technologies such as M2M application platforms, hardware modules, and network services to make innovative M2M solutions a reality.

Sysmex won Gold in the Remote Services category for its next generation solution powered by the ThingWorx platform.  As a key enabler in their solution, we are proud to see them recognized for their innovative use of our technology.

Congratulations Sysmex!

For too long Remote Services (and its crazy uncle in the attic, M2M) have been stuck in the device-centric, command and control mindset. Back at the turn of the century, in the early 2000’s, when most of the currently used Remote Services application suites were developed, giving a service organization a remote connection to a device was the equivalent of giving a BIC™ lighter to a caveman. The remote device and its occasionally connected characteristics became the center of attention in any application. In hindsight, while that seemed like a good idea at the time, that focus gave short shrift to user needs and business goals. Unfortunately, that is still going on today. Slap some APIs on those device centric applications and call it a platform, and what you get it the ability to create your own version of those same device centric applications. It’s time to fundamentally rethink Remote Services.

Any modern business application needs to help an organization (a) achieve its goals, and (b) identify and break down the tasks and activities required to do so. Activity-centric thinking helps the user plan their day and the business plan their year. Activities are tasks that help deconstruct a larger problem or goal set into manageable, measurable chunks. However quite often what they aren’t is planned. While we would like to have all of our tasks planned, in this interrupt driven world we all live in we must be flexible, dynamically adjusting our activity stream based on new, higher priority tasks that might arise. Try as we might, no can predict when a lightning strike takes out that key piece of equipment that our most important customer is depending on. More importantly, the task isn’t to identify the problem, the task is to solve the problem. That requires much more than just connecting to a device. In fact it requires more information than that which the device alone can deliver and quite often, more brainpower and knowledge than a single user can provide.

This is a fundamental failing of the current set of device-centric Remote Services applications. Having a device automatically create a trouble ticket or giving a user the ability to see the device’s current status and run remote diagnostics, while useful and helpful, does not solve the problem. Solving the problem is the task, a task that requires not just interacting with that device and visibility into its history, but also having pre-filtered, focused information at your fingertips. It requires the ability to collaborate with others. It requires a dedicated workspace where people can share ideas, track the situation, and give management visibility into the progress of the task. Activities and tasks also have a finite lifetime. Activity-centric applications must be able to manage this lifecycle. For example, dynamically create a collaborative workspace and invite the appropriate users when an event happens while also closing out the task and harvesting any new knowledge and learning that have been acquired during this closeout so that it is available the next time a similar event occurs.

Of course, not all tasks are purely reactive. They may be time based – a service technician needs to fill out a time sheet once a week, or planned – a machine is coming up on 10,000 cycles and needs preventive maintenance.

Finally, because we live in a world that includes devices and business processes in addition to people we also must not limit our concept of activities to humans alone. For example, devices themselves may have activities that are either time based – every 15 minutes collect this set of properties and push it to a server for further analysis, or exception driven – if the temperature exceed its threshold notify the server with this error code. These activities are every bit as important to achieving certain goals (e.g. increased equipment uptime) as are the activities that are undertaken by collaborative group of people.
Bringing this activity-centric model to Remote Services requires a new way of thinking and a new toolset. While your current Remote Services infrastructure may suffice for pure device connectivity, it doesn’t give you everything you need to define and track the activities and tasks that help you achieve your goals. Most importantly it doesn’t give you the ability to manage your team or track your progress and it doesn’t let you harvest the tacit knowledge gained during these activities. I believe that activity-centric thinking and applications can completely change the game in Remote Services while erasing some key barriers that most Remote Services efforts encounter, such as both management and user buy-in. More importantly it will help M2M in general, and Remote Services in particular finally deliver on its tremendous promise.

Join ThingWorx and other leading companies at the 2012 Connected World Conference next week.  June 11 marks the opening of the event at the Pheasant Run Resort in Chicago.  Visit ThingWorx in Booth 109 as we showcase new and innovative solutions in the world of M2M and connected devices, and listen in as we discuss the emerging impacts of social and search in today’s connected world.

For more details, visit http://connectedworldmag.com/conference/.

See you in Chicago next week!

Last week, the Huffington Post reported that the US will need $1T over the next 25 years to replace or repair deteriorating drinking water pipes throughout the US.  This price tag highlights the well known problem with the water main infrastructure in the US – it is reaching the end of its lifespan and deteriorating rapidly.

At ThingWorx, we believe that this represents an opportunity to take advantage of breakthrough technologies in today’s connected world to build out the next generation of Smart Infrastructure in the US.  The significant cost savings that can be realized through the implementation of sensors and real-time condition monitoring on these physical assets cannot be ignored.  Furthermore, a smarter pipe infrastructure can also aid in ensuring safe, clean drinking water throughout the US.

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