There are approximately 50 billion devices in the world, ranging from home appliances & business computers to complex utility equipment, industrial machines and transport systems. The emergence of machine to machine (M2M) Technology now allows businesses to talk to their machines over wired or wireless networks. M2M communications and the Internet of Things are becoming more than buzzwords in the tech industry – they are the future of communication. Here are the tops stories this week in the M2M space.
The recently concluded Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) in Barcelona saw a lot of traffic about M2M. ILS Technology named FE Global Electronics its value added reseller of the year at MWC. ILS offers the deviceWISE M2M application platform, which captures data and performs common tasks in a manufacturing environment. FE Global distributes electronic components to its customers in nine countries in the pan-Asian market.
USA Technologies (News 
- Alert), Inc. (USAT) revealed this week that it entered into a new agreement with Ameri-Source, LLC. Under the conditions of the partnership, Ameri-Source will promote USAT's cashless payment solutions to its members. The agreement between USAT and Ameri-Source is acknowledgement that more consumers prefer to make purchases through cashless mechanisms such as ePort, even for items as inexpensive as soda from a vending machine. It would be a disservice to its members if Ameri-Source did not promote some kind of cashless solution to them. With the increasing popularity of smartphones and payment systems likePayPal, the next question may be how long it will take for companies like USAT to support that technology.
In other partnership news, information technology solutions and services provider Wipro Technologies (News - Alert) and Axeda Corporation, a provider of machine to machine solutions, have formed an alliance with the hopes of providing organizations with a robust M2M solution powered by Axeda (News - Alert) Machine Cloud. The integrated solution will enable organizations to connect with any asset, leverage rich machine data to enhance business processes and develop new innovative enterprise applications.
Machine to machine solutions are becoming prominent in various industries, including among airlines, which need accurate, quick and streamlined solutions for customers to track cargo shipments remotely. AT&T’s (News - Alert) M2M solutionswill now allow airlines and their customers in tracking their cargo consignments globally with its new M2M applications. The company has been collaborating with OnAsset Intelligence Inc., a company in the field of freight intelligence, for achieving its new goal.
Leveraging a patented technology known as FlightSafe, OnAsset ensures that wireless asset tracking devices are able to sense when the cargo has been loaded upon on an aircraft, and adjust the settings accordingly. The technology is compliant with the regulations laid out by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and has been approved by most of the commercial airlines. The device stops the transmission of all onboard radios during the flight, and turns them on as soon as the plane lands to track the cargo further while it’s finally delivered.
To stay up to date on the latest trends, announcements and resources, be sure to visit the machine to machine solutions community on TMCnet each week.
