Hannover, March 18, 2015: Much is being read into the formation of this new alliance from both sides of the Atlantic announced at the on-going CeBIT in Hannover, Germany.
Two of the leading groups working to enable the Internet of Things (IoT) announced plans to work together. A strategic liaison agreement between the EEBus Initiative e.V. (EEBus) and Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) will allow the two to collaborate on specification development and certification programs, helping to increase interoperability and ease of use, while minimising duplication of effort and fragmentation.
The German EEBus is dedicated to defining an end-to-end solution for the smart grid and smart home that will increase the efficiency, environmental protection, convenience and security of the energy supply and related Smart Home management. The EEBus originated in a research program (“E-energy”) funded by the German government a global initiative that has brought the leading stakeholders of the energy, telecommunications and electronics industries in Europe together.
The OIC, on the other hand, is a Delaware, US-based non-profit corporation, founded by leading technology companies with the goal of defining the connectivity requirements and ensuring interoperability of the billions of devices that will make up the emerging IoT.
OIC’s connectivity framework simplifies the way application developers and device manufacturers manage common tasks of discovery and connectivity over many different transports including WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, ZWave. This collaboration means both groups will reference or repurpose work already done in the other organization; “all while harmonizing future roadmaps”, said EEBus in a written statement.
“This relationship marks a giant leap forward in delivering interoperability for the Internet of Things. OIC’s unique combination of standards development with the associated IoTivity open source project is the right approach for an IoT communications framework. Also, although both organisations are global, EEBus’ strength in Europe fits well with OIC’s strength in the Americas and Asia. With this collaboration we intend to combine the two groups’ technical strengths and market penetration to achieve a common goal,” said Peter Kellendonk, Chairman EEBus.
Imad Sousou, Vice President and General Manager, Intel Open Source Technology Center and board of directors’, Vice President at the OIC, said in a press release that the OIC would work with EEBus in the area of Smart Home. “We believe this is a space where the two groups can complement each other’s efforts and help more quickly realise the vision of Smart Homes with intelligent, interoperable devices,” he said.
EEBus has over 50 member companies including ABB, Bosch, Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte, E.ON, Miele, SMA and Telekom. OIC also has more of less the same number of members, including Cisco, Dell, GE, Honeywell, Intel, Samsung and Siemens.
The EEBus Initiative is a non-profit organisation and develops interoperable Smart Home communication technologies based on a neutral information layer with corresponding data models and their mapping onto different domain specific network technologies.
Image Credit: EEBus
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