Two industry groups seeking to draft device specifications to enable the Internet of Things used the CeBIT show in Hanover, Germany, Tuesday to announce a “strategic liaison agreement” to collaborate on developing open specs and certification programs. Under the agreement, the EEBus Initiative and the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) will work to increase device interoperability and ease of use, “while minimizing duplication of effort and fragmentation,” they said. EEBus is working to define “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,” that group said. OIC’s “connectivity framework simplifies the way application developers and device manufacturers manage common tasks of discovery and connectivity” over multiple interface standards, including Bluetooth, Zigbee and ZWave, OIC said. “This collaboration means both groups will reference or re-purpose work already done in the other organization, all while harmonizing future roadmaps,” they said.

Silicon Labs said Thursday it's partnering with ARM to define and deliver power management APIs (application programming interfaces) for ARM mbed platforms. Power management will enable energy efficiency solutions for ultra-low-power, battery-operated connected devices, the companies said. A feature in the APIs automatically determines and enables the optimal sleep mode based on the microcontroller (MCU) peripherals in use, which can significantly reduce power consumption, they said. Low-energy optimization is achieved by enabling input/output operations to be executed in the background and by allowing the operations to continue even while the MCU core is in sleep mode or during other processing tasks, they said. The mbed platform will play a key role in accelerating the deployment of “countless battery-powered IoT applications," said Daniel Cooley, general manager-Silicon Labs MCU and wireless products.

SAP joined the Industrial Internet Consortium, which aims to accelerate and promote the business use of the Internet of Things, the company said in a news release at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Wednesday.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators submitted an Internet of Things resolution Wednesday backing a “national vision to promote economic growth and greater consumer empowerment through the Internet of Things.” The resolution follows a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last month on the IoT (see 1502110035). “Our Internet of Things resolution would commit our nation to a national strategy incentivizing the use of new technologies to maximize consumer opportunity and to facilitate economic growth,” said Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb. “This resolution underscores our strong commitment to fostering innovation, protecting consumers, and finding solutions to our toughest problems through technology-driven solutions,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. “The Internet of Things resolution would encourage new opportunities to harness the power of the Internet and develop innovative solutions for people and businesses,” said Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H. “As we work to advance the Internet of Things, we must remain committed to empowering consumers, developing technological safeguards while enabling innovation, and improving the quality of life for future generations,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

Mobile operators will continue to struggle as average revenue per user stays in continual decline, forecast a report from ABI Research Monday. It said the machine-to-machine (M2M), also known as the Internet of Things, market will grow to $174 billion in 2019, a 200 percent growth from 2014. ABI identified six potential future growth areas for mobile operators: digital content, M2M, mobile money, big data monetization, advertising and enterprise cloud solutions. The findings are part of ABI’s mobile deployments, capital expenditures and traffic market research.

The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) announced a liaison agreement with the Industrial Internet Consortium Thursday to share information that will help streamline interoperability for the Internet of Things. With the use of 4.9 billion connected devices expected in 2015, “the need to create industry standardizations in IoT is increasing rapidly,” said an OIC news release. “Through this formal liaison, the Industrial Internet Consortium will share its use cases and architectural requirements focused on the industrial market,” the release said. “In turn, OIC will ensure that its specification and associated open source project (IoTivity) will deliver the necessary features in an IoT communication framework to meet the requirements and make the use cases not just real, but also easy to implement.” OIC members include Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Samsung and Siemens.

Texas Instruments introduced a new SimpleLink platform of ultra-low-power wireless microcontrollers for Internet of Things connectivity that helps OEM customers “go battery-less with energy harvesting or enjoy always-on, coin cell-powered operation for multiple years,” it said Wednesday. The platform is an “industry-first technology” that gives OEMs “the flexibility to develop products that support multiple wireless connectivity standards using a single-chip and identical RF design,” it said. The platform supports Bluetooth Smart, 6LoWPAN, Sub-1 GHz, ZigBee and ZigBee RF4CE, as well as “proprietary modes” up to 5 Mbps, it said. The CC2640 for Bluetooth Smart and the CC2630 for 6LoWPAN and ZigBee will be the first devices introduced on the new platform, TI said. “Leveraging this multi-standard support, customers can future-proof their designs and configure their chosen technology at the time of installation in the field.” Additional devices on the new platform will become available later in 2015, TI said.

Altair Semiconductor said it's sampling FourGee-1160 and FourGee-1150 Category-1 and Category-0 chipsets for Internet of Things applications with plans to deploy commercially later this year. The company said carriers, device makers and module vendors have “shifted gears” in recent months to prepare for an “aggressive introduction” of smart IoT applications when LTE CAT-1 and CAT-0 chipsets become available. CAT-1 and CAT-0 are lower speed/lower power versions of the LTE standard that expand the addressable market for carriers and chip makers, enabling targeted IoT features, extended battery life and a lower cost entry point for LTE connectivity, said Altair Wednesday.

Enterprise adoption of the Internet of Things is still "relatively low" but “starting to gain momentum,” said an ABI Research report commissioned by Verizon Enterprise Solutions. The number of business-to-business IoT connections will quadruple between 2014 and 2020, rising to 5.4 billion connections globally, said the report. Social media and mobile technology are transforming consumer and citizen expectations about IoT, and the dropping costs of sensors, connectivity and processing power are making IoT a more viable proposition to a broader set of organizations, it said. An improving economy has brought new entrants in the enterprise market that are using IoT as a “roadmap to improve their customers' experiences, accelerate growth and create new business models that are driving societal innovation,” said Mark Bartolomeo, Verizon vice president-IoT Connected Solutions. In the automotive industry, 14 car manufacturers with 80 percent of the worldwide market have a connected car strategy, Verizon said. More than 13 million health and fitness tracking devices will be introduced in the workplace by 2018 as part of employer-sponsored wellness programs to help reduce the cost of healthcare, it said, and by 2025 smart cities capabilities will become a “critical consideration” for companies deciding where to invest and open facilities, “due to their impact on operating costs and talent availability." Verizon saw 45 percent year-over-year revenue growth in its IoT business in 2014, with 4G LTE activations growing 135 percent, the company said. Verizon estimates just 10 percent of enterprises have deployed IoT technologies extensively. That indicates many organizations “are in a pilot phase or are waiting for more insights from early adopters,” said the company, including the automotive market. More than 600 million vehicles worldwide aren't connected to a network, according to Verizon data. While the core technologies powering IoT -- sensors, cloud computing and intelligent networking -- are familiar to most businesses and public sector organizations, formulating a viable strategy and developing IoT solutions can be highly complex, said Bartolomeo. "There's still a lot more work to be done” in creating and ratifying standards, he said. "As machine-to-machine technology adoption continues to move downstream with millions of endpoints connected, it will change how we see cybersecurity and privacy." Verizon’s role is to “help key decision makers tackle complexities like security head-on by encouraging a more proactive posture in order to create value for their organizations while reducing potential risk," the company said.

The newly formed LoRa Alliance is accepting membership applications and will formally debut during Mobile World Congress next month, it said. The group's mission is to standardize the low-power wide area networks (LPWANs) being deployed around the world to enable Internet of Things, M2M (machine-to-machine), smart-city and industrial applications, it said in a news release. The LoRaWAN protocol is said to offer bi-directionality, security, mobility for asset tracking, and accurate localization. The LoRaWAN protocol enables new business models and makes the IoT more attractive to both developers and end users, the group said, and satisfies the requirements of many applications that need to go beyond the reach of cellphone towers and Wi-Fi networks. Potential use cases include vending machines that alert distributors when a product is sold out or when the machine requires maintenance; cities that offer smart meters and apps to help drivers find open parking spaces; pet tracking/migration patterns for animal lovers; and cargo tracking for logistics providers. Semtech developed the LoRa platform.